HACETTEPE UNIVERSITY

2006 – 2007

BUS420 NEGOTIATION PROCESS

Subject: Persuasion

Instructor: Azize ERGENELİ

Prepared by:

• Burak TUNCA 20212258

• Vacide KÖK 20312273
• Melih AHİ 20211577
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

AN ORIENTATION TO PERSUASION.........................................................................................1
WHAT IS PERSUASION?...........................................................................................................1
A PRELIMINARY DEFINITION................................................................................................2
VIEWS ON PERSUASION.........................................................................................................4
Can the Persuasion Process be Understood, that is, Is a Theory of Persuasion Possible?.......6
What are the Sources of Knowledge for Persuasion Theory?..................................................8
What Are the Elements of the Persuasion Process?.................................................................8
Should the Teaching of Persuasion Stress Understanding or Application?..............................9
Is Persuasion an Acceptable Method of Influence?..................................................................9
PERSUASION VS NEGOTIATION............................................................................................9
THE NATURE OF COMMUNICATION......................................................................................10
A MODEL OF THE PERSUASION PROCESS............................................................................11
CHARACTERISTICS OF PERSUASION PROCESS..............................................................13
Source Characteristics............................................................................................................13
Target Characteristics.............................................................................................................13
Message Characteristics.........................................................................................................13
COGNITIVE ROUTES TO PERSUASION..............................................................................14
THE KEYS TO POSITIVE PERSUASION..............................................................................15
DECISION-MAKING THROUGH PERSUASION......................................................................16
PERSUASION AND THE INDIVIDUAL.................................................................................18
As Persuader...........................................................................................................................18
As Persuadee..........................................................................................................................20
PERSUASION AND SOCIETY................................................................................................22
MOTIVATION, ATTITUDES, AND BEHAVIOR.........................................................................24
THE CONCEPT OF MOTIVATION.........................................................................................24
Control of Motivation.............................................................................................................24
Attitudes and Values...............................................................................................................25
ANGER AS A PERSUASIVE TACTIC.....................................................................................25
VARIABILITY OF RECEIVER RESPONSE...............................................................................26
General Characteristics of Receiver Response.......................................................................27
THE NATURE OF ATTENTION..................................................................................................28
IMPLICATIONS FOR PERSUASION......................................................................................28
THE DECISION TO PERSUADE.................................................................................................30
Alternative Decisions.............................................................................................................31
SELECTING THE SPECIFIC PERSUASION PURPOSE.......................................................32
Factors Affecting Formation of the Specific Purpose............................................................32
The Process of Selecting the Specific Purpose.......................................................................34
Framing a Specific Purpose Statement...................................................................................36
LOGICAL APPEALS.....................................................................................................................37
Strategy in Use of Logical Appeals........................................................................................37
MOTIVATIONAL APPEALS........................................................................................................39
Strategy in Use Motivational Appeals....................................................................................39
LANGUAGE AND STYLE...........................................................................................................41
LANGUAGE AND STYLE IN PERSUASION........................................................................41

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ETHOS: CREATION AND EFFECTS..........................................................................................42
THE NATURE OF ETHOS........................................................................................................42
Definition................................................................................................................................43
EFFECTS OF THE PERSUASION PROCESS ON THE SOURCE............................................43
SIGNIFICANCE........................................................................................................................44
PERSUASION OF THE SELF..................................................................................................45
EFFECTS ON ACTION.............................................................................................................46
Before the Communication Act..............................................................................................46
During the Communication Act..............................................................................................46
After the Communication Act................................................................................................46
ETHICS AND PERSUASION.......................................................................................................47
Are Persuasion and Ethics Related?.......................................................................................47
Should Ethics be Discussed Abstractly or Concretely?..........................................................48
Should One Persuade Lacking Certainty?..............................................................................48
HOW TO BE A GOOD PERSUADER..........................................................................................51
BEING A GOOD LISTENER....................................................................................................51
Don’t Interrupt........................................................................................................................51
Don’t Finish the Other Person’s Sentences............................................................................52
Talking Over the Other Person...............................................................................................52
KEEPING ATTENTION............................................................................................................52
Attention Breakdowns............................................................................................................52
Visual Distractions..................................................................................................................52
Dealing with Constant Interruptions......................................................................................52
Say What You Are Going To Say...........................................................................................53
MEMORY..................................................................................................................................53
Remembering Names.............................................................................................................53
POWER OF WORDS.................................................................................................................54
TIMING......................................................................................................................................54
THE PERSONALITY SPECTRUM..........................................................................................54
TESTING.......................................................................................................................................57
ANSWERS.................................................................................................................................58
REFERENCES...............................................................................................................................60

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 PERSUASION PROCESS

AN ORIENTATION TO PERSUASION
The word "persuasion" undoubtedly stirs up diverse responses in people. For many,
persuasion suggests something a bit distasteful, something more or less hidden, unfair; a subtle or
not so subtle playing on or manipulating people, perhaps by appealing to emotion or to the baser
nature. Persuasion suggests people doing things to other people without regard for these people,
their needs, or their integrity
Most of us would rather choose to do something, become convinced of the proper course
of action rather than be persuaded. No one should try to decide how we should think or feel.
Persuasion is at best at logical if not illogical; it emphasizes the emotions; it leads people astray.
Such negative connotations are so linked to the term "persuasion" that for some people
these associations have become part of the denotative meaning of persuasion. This view is often
associated with the belief that persuasion is so pernicious that most individuals are powerless to
resist it. But it is important for us to develop sufficient common ground that the term
"persuasion".

WHAT IS PERSUASION?
Persuasion is a complex process. Understanding this process will involve an
understanding of the psychology of man. Further, we must look outside the narrow specifics of a
given situation to the forces that bear upon inviduals in terms of their past history, the present,
and their goals for the future.
Persuasion is integral to much of daily communication. Each of us is the target of massive
amounts of persuasion from sources far removed from our daily conversations with family,
friends, and associates. But these daily interactions also have much persuasion in them, and often
the more important effects on our lives come from these "ordinary" interactions. Each of us is
alternately persuader and persuadee in these daily interactions.
Persuader and persuadee are both responding to forces outside as well as inside
themselves. The reasons why a particular persuasive effort is attempted are as much a response to
forces outside and inside that individual as are the responses to that particular persuasive attempt
by the target.

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 Persuader and persuadee are typically involved in an ongoing system of relationships: one
to the other and to the society at large. A tremendous amount of persuasion goes on between and
among people. Much of this influence probably is unconscious: the persuader has no clear
recognition that he is attempting to affect the behavior of another person; the persuadee has no
awareness that his behavior is being affected by the other. We are much more aware of persuasion
efforts being transmitted through the mass media.
Not all attempts at persuasion are successful. Some are successful for a while and then are
reversed. Others are not successful for a long time and then the desired goal is achieved.
People may respond one way in one situation but quite differently in another. What turns a
person on one day may turn him off the next.
It is extremely difficult to measure the success or failure of a persuasive effort.
In the analysis of actual persuasion it is extremely difficult if not impossible to say
accurately "This persuaded him." "The reason he did this was that I told him the truth." It may
equally be untrue to say, "He did it of his own free will. I didn't try to influence him. I told him he
could do whatever he wanted and I wouldn't interfere. It was all up to him."
To define the beginning or ending of a persuasive attempt may be exceedingly difficult.
The entire previous experience of both the persuader and the persuadee are involved in any given
persuasive situation. Furthermore, the cumulative effects of a whole lifetime of persuasive
attempts may finally result in a dramatic conversion for which the persuader of the moment takes
credit.

A PRELIMINARY DEFINITION
Persuasion is the communication process of getting someone to do something by
convincing him that it is the logical and reasonable thing to do. We persuade each other
constantly, many of our most familiar activities, convincing, requesting, arguing, flirting,
coaxing, advertising, debating, buying, selling nagging, flattering and criticizing, are rooted in
persuasion. Since infancy, we’ve persuaded and been persuaded countless times.
Communication suggests that two or more distinct individuals are involved and that the
means employed stresses the use of symbols, particularly language, as the key instrumentality. In
communication, meanings are not transferred directly from mind to mind but rather ideas in a
mind are translated or encoded into symbols which are placed in a channel, picked up by the
target from the channel, and decoded into meanings. The meanings that are stirred up may be

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more or less like those intended by the sender. We often confuse the process of communication
and the question of the degree to which the communication is successful.
"Process" suggests something of an ongoing, interacting, interrelated nature. The process
may go on even if it fails to achieve the goal set by a communicator. Thus it is important to
carefully distinguish between the process and the result of that process in terms of accomplishing
the intended goal of a sender. You may totally fail to influence your target but be engaged in a
process of persuasion.
"The communicator seeks" raises important issues. It should be noted that both a sender
and a target may alternate roles. You may be seeking to persuade a friend to vote for the
Democratic candidate and he may be trying to persuade you to vote for the Republican candidate.
You are both simultaneously persuaders and persuadees; however, until you are about to have a
complete breakdown or blowup in communication, it is doubtful if you are simultaneously both
—rather there will be some sense of alternation of roles.
"The communicator seeks" suggests some degree of conscious intent. Conscious intent
becomes a very real problem in the definition of persuasion. Most of us recognize the idea that
the mind can be viewed as having various levels of conscious awareness. Indeed, it takes a
psychiatrist to tell us we are overeating so we will not have to compete in attracting the opposite
sex or that we try to be a Don Juan because we are so insecure about our real sexual abilities.
Behavior is the result of both conscious and unconscious forces, at least as we discuss these
things in normal terms. Similarly, the decision to persuade may be the result of conscious and
unconscious forces, and we may not be consciously aware that we are attempting to persuade. To
the degree persuasion has negative connotations, we may repress the awareness.
"A desired response" may suggest some immediate action or behavior, or it may mean
some type of mental assent or change. Perhaps the most dramatic change occurs when a target
simply is willing to expose himself to further persuasion, such exposure ultimately affecting a
change in his attitude. Again, we encounter the problem of the temporal dimension in evaluating
the persuasion process. Initial persuasion may cause a violently negative response but with time
and perhaps additional persuasion from other sources, the target may come to accept the view
offered. Or the target may be stirred to a very positive response, but in three weeks he has
forgotten all about the matter and his attitude is exactly the same as it was before.

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 In one sense, this definition makes persuasion almost synonymous with ' all
communication, for in communication a sender seeks to win response to his ideas. To some
degree this is true; all communication can be viewed as persuasion. But for purposes of study, it
is useful to limit persuasion communication in which the elements in the communication process
are weighted by the communicator for the purpose of directing the response to a relatively
specific goal. It is one thing to describe the ocean so a listener will understand more about the
ocean (and clearly there are motivational links involved in this process), and another to attempt to
form this description so that he will invest in a project or take up skin diving.

VIEWS ON PERSUASION
1. What is persuasion in terms of function, users, and setting? Initially, persuasion was
thought of as oral communication largely limited to structured situations. Corax, credited with
being the founder of rhetoric, normalized the already-recognized importance of effective
speaking by advising petitioners how they might gain greater success in the courts. Aristotle
treated three settings: public speeches of a ceremonial nature,\speeches in legislative settings, and
speeches in judicial settings.
However, the expansion of education in the last century, the rise of the democratic ideal,
the increased emphasis upon self-determination, the greater concern with understanding all
people, not just "those who matter," made it inevitable that persuasion be perceived in a broader
sense. Persuasion is now considered as a process in which all men engage. Persuasion is as much
a phenomenon of the breakfast table as the conference table, of the common man as of the
uncommon man. The mass media by one means or other floods potential targets with appeals for
everything from Ban to presidential candidates. Communication settings from the one- to-one
conversation or letter to world-wide peace campaigns necessitate persuasion. Further, the sit-in,
passive and not so passive civil disobedience, the march, and the propaganda campaign using a
variety of media are all powerful persuasive efforts.
2. What is persuasion in terms of media employed? Persuasion in the writings of Aristotle,
Cicero, Quintilian, and Isocrates, was discussed almost solely in terms of oral communication.
Speeches might be written but they became speeches only when delivered orally. With the advent
of print, rhetoric not unnaturally expanded to include written communication as well. Indeed, the
term rhetoric now is often thought to refer strictly to written communication. The term
persuasion, although still seeming to be applied more to oral communication settings, has now

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come to include the use of all the media of communication. The increase in available media and
the possibility of the use of multiple media have made media considerations more important
factors in contemporary persuasion theory. Marshall McLuhan has been a significant popularizer
of this increased emphasis upon the role of the medium. The oral mode of communication is still
the most used medium for communication, and the electronic media are enhancing that
domination.
3. What is persuasion in terms of definitional focus? Aristotle discussed rhetoric as the
study of the available means of persuasion. But the emphasis in Aristotle's Rhetoric is upon the
process by which the speaker creates and delivers his speech with the focus almost totally upon
advance preparation of the speech.4 While this process of preparation involves an understanding
of the nature of targets and the effect of certain situational elements, the speaker and the process
of creating the message is the essence of the Rhetoric.
The Rhetoric describes the process of preparation as involving four key stages: invention,
the finding and selecting of proofs; disposition, the organization of material; elocution, the
wording and styling of the material; and pronunciation, the delivery of the prepared material
orally. signed.
Some definitions focus more sharply upon the message or items relevant to messages.
Many definitions stress the use of language as a means of achieving the desired impact.
Contemporary definitions take more note of, language in definitions of persuasion than was
formerly the case.
Historically, the term "persuasion" has often been limited in terms of \ the appeals
employed or the mental "faculty" being utilized. Some text-books today still retain the divisions
of speeches to convince (reliance upon logic), to persuade (reliance upon emotional appeal), and
to actuate, as well as speeches to inform or entertain. This distinction between persuasion and
other forms also appears in the separation of courses in argumentation from those in persuasion.
Contemporary definitions of persuasion tend to focus upon the processness of persuasion
and to stress the interaction and interrelationship of a number of factors in a complex matrix.
While the source and the intent of the source remain a frequent key to the determination of the
appearance of the process of persuasion, study of persuasion theory involves increasing emphasis
upon the total process—all the elements—with greater attention to target response.

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 4. What is persuasion in terms of its function as a means or an end? General dictionaries
have a tendency to define persuasion in terms of an end state: the condition of being persuaded.
Akin to this approach is defining persuasion in terms of the success of the persuasive effort.
Many find it difficult to separate the success of the effort from the definition of persuasion. For
such people, persuasion has occurred when the target is persuaded, but it has not occurred when
the target is not persuaded. This latter event is labeled as an "attempt" at persuasion. This
approach produces great confusion. Persuasion is best treated as a process which may succeed or
may fail. Whether success or failure results, the process of persuasion has taken place. Placing an
emphasis upon results leads to great difficulty for two reasons: one cannot determine if
persuasion is taking place until after the process is completed. Even then the difficulties of
measuring responses are such that it is usually impossible to know if success or failure has
resulted. Secondly, the responses usually involve some degree of success and some degree of
failure or even negative persuasion.

Can the Persuasion Process be Understood, that is, Is a Theory of Persuasion

Possible?
The answer to this question lies in the criteria used to judge the answer. If by
understanding one demands complete, total understanding, the answer is obviously "no." If one
demands a theory that yields absolute predictability of results, the answer is no. But if one is
willing to grant the presupposition that although man cannot know everything, this does not mean
that what he knows is necessarily untrue, the answer will change. The working assumption of
writers for over two thousand years has been that persuasion can be profitably analyzed, that the
process of persuasion can be understood at some level.
There is much about man that we do not yet understand; therefore, there must be much
about persuasion that we do not yet understand. Further, theories of persuasion that gained wide
acceptance in the past are now often thought to be largely or totally untrue. Yet the idea of
building from a theory toward further understanding is a familiar one. Indeed, one function of
building a theory is to yield a means of testing the theory. Such testing may cause a portion of the
theory to be discarded, modified, or retained. Understanding is increased as a result of the
promulgation and testing of the theory.
1. Can the persuasion process be reduced to formula? Obviously if the degree of
understanding is not total, a formula that guarantees success is impossible. There have been many

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attempts to provide formulas for success. The secrets of selling, five ways to success, how to get
your man, how to win friends without creating enemies—these are suggestive of the titles of
books and articles widely available. As long as these books tend to focus upon certain key and
rather general propositions of theory, the formulas are surprisingly useful. Feeding a crying baby
who has been four hours without feeding is generally good advice. He usually stops crying, but
not always.
Writers interested in extended analysis of persuasion inevitably stress that no formula
works. But certain processes are described and certain techniques suggested which are useful.
2. What is the best approach to understand persuasion: to view it as a fixed, invariate
procedure or as a variable process? Noting that Aristotle's treatment of logic became a prison for
future logicians, Bertrand Russell urges that Aristotle's followers and not Aristotle made his
approach descriptive and fixed.9 Similarly, persuasion theorists see the process of\ persuasion as
involving much flexibility, the interaction of many variables. However, as these theorists proceed
to give advice to the communicator or as others take over the theory, the tendency is to treat the
formula as rigid and prescriptive with universal laws rather than flexible and descriptive, with
qualified generalizations.
The prescriptive approach seems to have two inherent flaws: (1) Exceptions to the
generalizations always occur, and thus the person who treats the generalization as prescriptive
tends to reject the validity of a useful generalization. (2) The approach denies the practitioner the
opportunity to draw upon the totality of the theory and to attempt from all that he knows to
generate a unique "solution" of what is most likely to be effective in this particular instance—one
that will never again be exactly duplicated.
People who approach the persuasion process as a fixed procedure often place the
emphasis upon the wrong idea. For example, teachers have been known to urge nervous student
speakers to look about two inches over the heads of their receiver. The speakers will then appear
to have eye contact with their receiver but will not become nervous. The assumption is that eye
contact per se is valuable or at least the appearance of eye contact is valuable. Eye contact
provides the speaker with feedback with information from and about his receiver during the
delivery of the speech that enables him to adjust to his targets. The advice to avoid looking at the
targets exactly violates the basic reason for eye contact—the chance to be more effective by
adjusting to auditors.

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 Assuming the view that persuasion is a complex, interrelated, interactive process means
accepting the practice of persuasion as an art calling for judgment and insight in application that
cannot be marched by the application of rigid, unvarying techniques of approach.

What are the Sources of Knowledge for Persuasion Theory?

Despite the variety of approaches to persuasion, the sources of knowledge for persuasion
theory have not shown extreme variation from writer to writer. Most writers recognize implicitly,
and usually explicitly, the need for an understanding of the psychology of man, knowledge of his
customs and culture, ability in reasoning and testing reasoning chains (logic), mastery of
linguistic tools, and an understanding of the subject matter being treated sufficient to the needs of
the communicator. Differences arise in the particular point of view adopted within these areas and
the stress on one aspect versus another.

What Are the Elements of the Persuasion Process?

As suggested above, writers differ in terms of the elements treated in the persuasion
process and differ sharply in terms of dominant emphasis upon one or more of these elements.
Aristotle and other classical writers focused upon sources and message elements with
some attention to the nature of targets and settings.
For some later writers, persuasion was restricted to the use of emotional Appeals. At other
times, persuasion was largely limited to elements of style and delivery. Writers who focused
almost purely on style and stylistic devices led to the connotation of "rhetoric" as style, often in a
negative sense of unwarranted "purple patches." Training in oral communication became training
in delivery under the influence of the elocutionary school.
In recent decades greater emphasis has been placed upon the totality of the process and
the interrelationship of elements within the process. Psychologists, social psychologists, linguists,
political scientists, and communicologists, have turned to approaching communication as a
process to x investigated both descriptively and experimentally.
Viewed in this way, communication and persuasion become a study\ in human .interaction
with emphasis upon the question of response to various classes of stimuli. Persuasion models
become linked to attitude change and learning theory models: we become interested in the
processes in the target which mediate between the stimuli presented and the response made.

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 Persuasion models typically involve greater emphasis upon the properties and interaction
of source, message, channel, and setting in yielding effects in the target. Many psychological
models note these elements, but in less detail, or perhaps group them in one general category
such as extrinsic stimuli.

Should the Teaching of Persuasion Stress Understanding or Application?

In a sense this is a false dichotomy for meaningful application of persuasion skills
demands an understanding of the theory. A student enrolling in a persuasion class typically wants
to improve his skills as a persuader; he rarely views the course as a major addition to a liberal
education. Textbooks on persuasion have generally been concerned with translation of the theory
of persuasion into useful advice for the practitioner. Perhaps within this emphasis they have
tended to teach rules more than offer basic understandings.

Is Persuasion an Acceptable Method of Influence?

Plato's dialogue, Gorgias, condemns rhetoric as the art of flattery, as base as cookery.
Persuasion has often been condemned as the method of making the worse appears the better, as
useful only because man is in the fallen state, and will not reason and choose the right. This
emphasis particularly correlates with the separation of logic from emotion and the idea that logic
is not a relevant means of inducing belief or action that can be employed by the persuader. The
denial of this separation removes much of the thrust of this claim.
If persuasion is treated as a process that makes full use of all the factors that motivate
man's behavior, then it follows that persuasion can be used for either moral or immoral ends and
can employ either ethical or unethical means. The answer to the question of the acceptability of
the process of persuasion seems to lie in pragmatic acceptance of reality: the process does exist
and is used for good and bad ends. The value judgment does not appear to necessarily inhere in
the process itself, but rather in the specifics of its use.

PERSUASION VS NEGOTIATION
When persuasion works, it usually works pretty quickly. After one good, solid
presentation—and an encore for insurance—the other side will almost certainly understand your
argument. If they haven’t been convinced by then, they’ll probably never be convinced.
Persuasion- wise, it’s time to fold your cards and go home. If you continue to argue your position
thereafter, you won’t just be wasting time, you’ll be annoying the bejeezus out of the other side.

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Each repetition will only crank up the volume on an already unmistakable message: Your
counterpart is obtuse, weak-willed, or both. While you and your counterpart are still on speaking
terms, stop persuading and start negotiating.
What is the difference between persuasion and negotiation? ; Concessions. Negotiating is
the process of getting someone to do something, even if they disagree with it, by giving them
enough concessions to make it worth their while. When you can’t win the other side’s agreement
with the compelling power of your argument, you can usually buy it with concessions.
Persuaders give reasons. Negotiators give concessions. The other side may or may not like
your reasons, but everybody likes concessions. Always persuade first. Put your heart into it.
Persuasion is faster, easier, more comfortable, and, above all, cheaper than negotiation. The
agreements you can’t win through persuasion you’ll have to negotiate with concessions, and
concessions are expensive.

THE NATURE OF COMMUNICATION

Communication in its broadest sense includes everything from human communication to
the IBM computer, the thermostat and furnace in our homes, the water-carrying system of a tree,
the honey dance of the bee, or the mating dance of the ruffled grouse.
A more limited definition is that of Newcomb, Turner, and Converse: "communication is
the form of interpersonal exchange through which, figuratively speaking, persons can come in
contact with each other's minds."
Man's language is a fantastically useful instrumentality. It enables man\to be man. (Try to
think of man without language.) However, communication often involves symbolic materials or
agencies other than words. Almost any material can be used symbolically. In general, a tree
growing in the woods does not have symbolic properties although the mind of the observer may
invest the tree with some. Decorated with colored lights and ornaments, and placed in a home, the
tree functions symbolically. A thumb extended in an upright position with the rest of the fingers
closed has symbolic meaning in the World War II movie on the late, late show. Similarly, the
same symbol but with the hand rotated 180 degrees had meaning in the Roman Colosseum.
Previous discussion about the elements and the dynamic nature of the persuasion process
is clearly relevant to this more general term of "communication."
The definition of communication and the preliminary definition of persuasion offered
earlier both involve some elements of source intent. To divide persuasion from the broader area

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of communication on the basis of intent is a sticky problem. Often the communicator is only
partially conscious of having any purpose, and one may argue endlessly about his real purpose.
Inevitably, the basis for discrimination between the two comes down to someone's estimate of
how much the information, data, or whatever is being transmitted is being "valenced" or
strategically employed for ends beyond the simple communication of the material itself.
Actually, the distinction between communication and persuasion seems of limited
importance. The dividing line, if there is one, is most indistinct. And there is no clear evidence of
harm if one treats a communication situation largely from the point of view of persuasion. There
is slightly greater risk in the reverse since certain "effects" may not be anticipated when the
viewer, the target, or the communicator, looks upon he situation as nonpersuasive and others
involved do not. Gross differentiations can be made and seem useful; those that involve the
splitting of hairs are probably not useful points for disagreement.

A MODEL OF THE PERSUASION PROCESS

A model is simply a representation in some transformed way of some thing or process. A
model is useful because it is schematic: often, it takes a complex unity and analyzes it into
smaller components; it provides the opportunity to study these components in greater detail; it
permits testing of the interrelationships of the parts. While useful, a model is not the thing
examined, and more than one model may be employed to represent the same thing. The model is
on paper; persuasion occurs in minds and involves interactions. Persuasion is dynamic,
interrelated; the model is static and linear. In persuasion the persuader of one moment becomes
the persuadee of the next; this model essentially shows a fixed-direction relation ship.
This model focuses upon three variables which become interrelated in the persuasion
process: the source, message and target.
Source. The source is the originator of the given persuasion attempt. Often this attempt is
a response to actions of the target or the mere presence of the target. It should be stressed that the
source's actions are motivated; his actions are the result of some constellation of forces impinging
upon him. His decision to attempt persuasion is a response.
The source possesses a mind. This mind has available to it the totality of that individual's
attitudes, beliefs, information; the mind is able to focus in an anticipatory way upon the potential
target, the setting, the available channels. His mind can test, alternatively accepting or rejecting
whole series of possible messages without actual delivery of any of them. It is true that the source

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is limited by what he brings to the situation. | If his information is wrong and he does not know it,
he must act within this framework. If his knowledge about the target is faulty, he will still act in
terms of it. He is free in some respects, but he is also bound by his perception of reality.
The source is capable of responding to information during the process of persuasion itself.
During the communication the source often receives feedback—responses from the target which
can be interpreted consciously or unconsciously and thus provide additional basis for altering or
structuring the persuasive efforts. The message itself provides stimulation to the source. Having
framed an idea in a certain way, the source may seek to alter the form because he almost
automatically rejects the particular form the idea has taken.
Message. The message is the constellation of stimuli the source actually puts into the
channel. The message is what we may capture on tape, on video tape, in cyclorama. The message
is the one element in the communication matrix that can be exactly replicated—it can be held
constant and reused again and again.
The definition of message in this way is a very crucial point. Whatever the ideas the
source may have intended, the message is what is in the channel. Some of what is in the message
(a composite of responses of the source that is simultaneously a composite of stimuli to target)
was put there consciously by the source, but in most instances the vast majority of the elements
are unconsciously placed in the message.
It is important to note that the message is, but the message does not mean. Meaning is a
property of the human mind. Thus the elements or stimuli that constitute the message have
meaning for the person that put them there; they may stir up meanings in the target, meanings like
or unlike those intended by the source. Further, an observer examining the process may see quite
different meanings than those attached to the stimuli by source and target. The concept that the
message does not mean but that people have meanings for messages is a critical one. Unless this
view is firmly fixed, some parts of this book may appear contradictory.
Target. The target is the person for whom the communication serves as a stimulus. At
times, persuasion will fail because the desired target, either from accident or by his active choice,
does not pick up the message in the channel. The target must act through his senses to pick up the
message from the channel and give meaning to it. At times the target is best viewed not as an
individual but as a composite average of all targets. Accidental or unintended targets may be of as

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much interest as those intended by the source. Thus, the precise limitation of the term "target"
that will be most useful must be left to the specific situation or purpose of study to determine.

CHARACTERISTICS OF PERSUASION PROCESS

Through persuasion, one individual (the source) tries to change the attitude of another
person (the target). Certain characteristics of the source, the target, and the message affect the
persuasion process. There are also two cognitive routes to persuasion.

Source Characteristics.
Three major characteristics of the source affect persuasion: expertise, trustworthiness, and
attractiveness .A source that is perceived as an expert is particularly persuasive. Arnold
Schwarzenegger, for example, would be a persuasive force for changing our attitude toward
fitness because of his expertise. Trustworthiness is also important. Dr. C. Everett Koop, the
former surgeon general, engendered a great deal of trust through his many public appearances
and open style of communication. He consequently was credited with helping change Americans'
attitudes toward smoking. Finally, attractiveness and likeability play a role in persuasion.
Attractive communicators have long been used in advertising to persuade consumers to buy
certain products. As a source of persuasion, managers who are perceived as being experts, who
are trustworthy, or who are attractive or likable will have an edge in changing employee attitudes.

Target Characteristics.
Some people are more easily persuaded than others. Individuals with low self-esteem are
more likely to change their attitudes in response to persuasion than are individuals with high self-
esteem. Individuals who hold very extreme attitudes are more resistant to persuasion, and people
who are in a good mood are easier to persuade. Undoubtedly, individuals differ widely in their
susceptibility to persuasion. Managers must recognize these differences and realize that their
attempts to change attitudes may not receive universal acceptance.

Message Characteristics.
Suppose you must implement an unpopular policy at work. You want to persuade your
employees that the policy is a positive change. Should you present one side of the issue or both
sides? Given that your employees are already negatively inclined toward the policy, you will have
more success in changing their attitudes if you present both sides. This shows support for one

13
side of the issue while acknowledging that another side does exist. Moreover, refuting the other
side makes it more difficult for the targets to hang on to their negative attitudes.
Messages that are obviously designed to change the target's attitude may be met with
considerable negative reaction. In fact, undisguised deliberate attempts at changing attitudes may
cause attitude change in the opposite direction! This is most likely to occur when the target of the
persuasive communication feels her or his freedom is threatened. Less threatening approaches are
less likely to elicit negative reactions.

COGNITIVE ROUTES TO PERSUASION.

When are message characteristics more important, and when are other characteristics
more important in persuasion? The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion, presented in the
figure, proposes that persuasion occurs over one of two routes: the central route and the
peripheral route. The routes are differentiated by the amount of elaboration, or scrutiny, the target
is motivated to give the message.
The central route to persuasion involves direct cognitive processing of the message's
content. When an issue is personally relevant, the individual is motivated to think carefully about
it. In the central route, the content of the message is very important. If the arguments presented
are logical and convincing, attitude change will follow.
In the peripheral route to persuasion, the individual is not motivated to pay much
attention to the message's content. The message may not be perceived as personally relevant, or
the individual may be distracted. Instead, the individual is persuaded by characteristics of the
persuader—for example, expertise, trustworthiness, and attractiveness. In addition, the individual
may be persuaded by statistics, the number of arguments presented, or the method of presentation
— all of which are consubstantial aspects of the message.
The elaboration likelihood model shows that the target's level of involvement with the
issue is important. That involvement also determines which route to persuasion will be more
effective.
We have seen that the process of persuading individuals to change their attitudes is
affected by the source, the target, the message, and the route. When all is said and done, however,
managers are merely catalysts for encouraging attitude change.

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 THE KEYS TO POSITIVE PERSUASION
The reasonableness of your negotiation position is, of course, the prime determinant in
persuading the other party to reach an agreement with you. Nevertheless, this is rarely self-
evident, and it's up to you to persuade the other party that you're offering them a good deal. This
is even more crucial when the deal isn't quite as good as you would like them to believe. The
following techniques can be of help in convincing those you negotiate with that your position
is fair and reasonable:
1. Be positive to persuade—being negative is counter productive. Act, look, think, and
talk like you believe in your negotiation objectives. If you don't, you can't reasonably expect the
other party to agree with you.
2. Know your facts and present them in a knowledgeable manner. To be successful in
negotiations, you don't have to persuade people to like you, but you do have to earn their respect.
3. Make sure you're understood. Talk on a level the other party can understand. Often,
"expert" members of negotiation teams go off on tangents, and/or couch their remarks in the
language of their professional specialty. However, no one should be talking at a negotiation
meeting, if they're not contributing to furthering your cause. So make sure that techno-talk is
defined in terms that can be understood. It's also useful to repeat hard-to-understand concepts and
terms.

15
 4. Talk to the decision-maker. No matter who has asked a question, direct your answer to
the decision-maker. That's the person who has to be persuaded.
5. Never engage in personal attacks on your adversary, either directly or indirectly. This
includes not only the person you're negotiating with, but also their superiors, subordinates, and
the organization they work for.
6. If possible, support your arguments with reference to third parties, since this adds
credibility. For example, "The MNZ Corporation increased production 20% by using our
machines." Naturally, if you have documentation providing third party testimonials, it's even
more convincing.
7. Show the other side how you can solve a problem they have. If the subject matter of
your negotiation is such that you can do this, you can't ask for anything more convincing.
8. Appearance counts. Whether it's a well-prepared written proposal, ora neatly dressed
negotiator, people are influenced by appearance.

DECISION-MAKING THROUGH PERSUASION

To discuss the role of persuasion in the lives of individuals singly and collectively, the
relationship of persuasion to other methods of decision-making and of gaining action must be
evaluated.
What is the basis for a decision to act, whether the decision is conscious or unconscious?
Three obvious responses are choice, force, and accident. We may choose to do something after
careful critical evaluates and extended agonizing, or we may respond to habit or the impulse of
the moment. Such choice is made at a level that is only momentarily conscious. In fact, we find
we are doing the thing as we realize we will do it. Both external and internal factors affect these
decisions. Force suggests that the alternative responses are sharply restricted.
Persuasion involves the attempt to affect cognitions of the receiver to effect a voluntary
change in his mental state and hence action, immediate or delayed. The concept of "choice"
provides a basis for understanding what constitutes persuasion. The definition of persuasion
involved "choice" by the persuader and "voluntary" change on the part of the receiver. Although
the persuader seeks to manipulate stimuli, to select among the possible elements those that will
maximize the probability of the desired response, the receiver must be "free" to choose his
response. The concepts of force and persuasion are not necessarily contradictory; often the two
are blended so inextricably that they cannot be fully disentangled, even in analysis. Witness the

16
totalitarian society. But to call the situation one of voluntary change, the receiver must have an
option to accept or reject without the "manifest certainty" of injury.
Application of this view returns us to the dilemma that life is not easily subjected to
dichotomous analysis. The persuader often seeks to make a person work with the induced "mental
certainty" that he is in danger, whether of smelling bad, losing his friends or his life if he
continues smoking. But in these instances the receiver is asked to elect a conclusion, he has the
sense of choice. "Indeed, if a man holds a gun to your head, you may decide he is bluffing, thus
the threat is less "persuasive." We cam view persuasion as a process in which the persuader at
some level of consciousness "chooses" his persuasion goal and means, and both persuader and
persuade operate with the presupposition that the receiver is given meaningful choice to accept or
reject the persuasion attempt, give or not give his attention, and to decide what his response will
be. This means a possibility of responses other than those anticipated by the persuader.
In this sense then, persuasion is a process in which the actions of receiver and source
become interlinked with both choosing their actions from among the factors known to them. The
persuader "grants" the freedom of; response to the receiver and the receiver "grants" the freedom
to persuade to the receiver.
What function does the persuasion process serve? The persuasion process is a means of
reaching decisions. The process may provide the stimulus for a receiver to reach a decision, a
means by which the decision is reached or affected, and/or a means to implement that decision.
Is persuasion involved in logical decision-making? Yes. The information a man has is in
part the result of persuasion efforts directed at him. Further, the presuppositions from which he
operates and the reasoning structures employed are likely to be the result of extended persuasion
efforts of others.
The efforts of some persuader, long forgotten by an individual now reaching a decision,
may bear fruit. There seems no valid way to separate the persuasion process from the individual
decision-making process, whether that process seems pre-eminently logical or totally illogical or
illogical.
In achieving decisions, persuasion involves the communication of information.
Information not only includes data, but also possible interpretations and meanings of that data.
Hence, persuasion involves information about data and responses to data, including judgment,
interpretation, emotional reaction, point of view, or any of the variety of possible human

17
responses. Many persuasion efforts stress logic and reasoning, and the basis for decision may be
(as far as we can dichotomize) essentially logical. One-to-one or small-group settings may
involve as much persuasion as do mass receivers.

PERSUASION AND THE INDIVIDUAL

Ask someone you know, why do you persuade? What function does persuasion serve? The
initial, responses will probably be about the values of persuasion to the active persuader: “To
fulfill my needs.” “To get and keep a good job.” “To accomplish my goals. ” “To get what I
want.” Rarely do people talk about the function that persuasion renders to them as persuades, as
the target of persuasion. Even rarer do we hear anyone focus upon persuasion as a key to the
actions in and of a society.
We all function as the "targets" of persuasion, and probably the persuasion process is of
greater value to us as persuade than as persuader. But the two roles are intertwined. How does
persuasion serve the individual as persuader? As persuade?

As Persuader
In our private lives and personal roles. “Dad, can I have the car tonight? NO!” “But Dad,
I need….”A normal, ordinary, trite scene. Normal, ordinary, everyday use of persuasion. And who
persuaded whom when the use of the car is traded for a wash and wax job next Saturday
afternoon.
Man seeks to adjust his environment to his needs and desires. Nowhere is this adjustment
more necessary and more obvious than in a small primary group: the family unit, the roommates
in an apartment triple, the dating couple, and the young married. These situations are not labeled
as persuasive by those engaged in them. These ordinary interactions are usually entered into
without thought and without awareness of affecting one another. The level of consciousness of
intent will vary: yours will not be the first family in which the wife cooks the husband's favorite
meal and then just happens to mention a new dress, or when the wife wants to talk, the husband
retreats behind the paper or to the couch with a splitting headache.
We can dislike a law or a politician and live with it. But the dislikes, frustrations, and
problems with people with whom we interact intimately, demand solutions. Persuasion is a tool
that enables us to come to mutual accommodation. Failure of persuasion can produce stresses we
cannot tolerate and fragment relationships or ourselves.

18
 We can fail in many of our persuasion efforts in our work, in dealing with society and
larger groups. But failure of persuasion efforts in our personal lives and roles is the failure that
can destroy the self.
We are more conscious of our use of persuasion in relationship to groups with which we
associate voluntarily. We join these groups for the rewards they offer us. In joining we stabilize
interaction to some degree, and we gain greater power in affecting others. We can multiply our
personal power to affect larger groups in society, and that power is important to many of us.
In our work. Any career role provides opportunity for and typically demands persuasive
efforts. A society in which man concentrates on extracting his living from the work of his hands
in the soil, on products, or through machines tends to make his use of persuasion more incidentals
to his work. He need not persuade to do his job. To alter conditions, to achieve change in the
pattern, to change his wages, however, may involve persuasion. Often these persuasive tasks are
delegated to unions or to others for action. For much of man's history these decisions were to be
accepted or "imposed." Currently, "ratification" by those involved is becoming more accepted.
Many people prefer to delegate responsibility for persuasion to others. At times this is the only
practical alternative.
Recent decades have brought a rapid evolution from man working directly on "things" to
man working with words: man as decision-maker, as an interactive link in a complex system
developing new knowledge or generating decisions characterizes developed nations. Words
become the tools which significantly shape man's world and by which man shapes his world.
Accomplishing one's "job" therefore involves persuasion. In the "professions" this becomes the
main tool.
The government official becomes a persuader. If elected, he must gain and continue to
win election. As a diplomat he represents his government. He alternately shapes and is shaped by
persuasive influence. Anyone in a leadership or decision-making role becomes a persuader, and
everyone can lose if he fails.
Nor should the increasing number of people whose job directly involves the task of
persuasion be ignored. Salesmen have graduated from selling anvils (never on credit) to IBM
machines—available only in a complete package including servicing and installation contracts.
The salesman has traded in the week-long railroad and car odyssey for jetting coast to coast;
telephone and telegraphy replace the Pony Express. The "soda jerk" has given way to the modern

19
retailer with a drugstore that sells everything from plush toys, liquor, discount drugs, to lighting
fixtures, dresses, and tickers to sporting events and the theatre.
The public sees the salesman directing his persuasion to them. It is easy to overlook the
sales campaign that persuaded companies to put various vitamins, mineral, and synthetic
additives in hog feed, thus eliminating the difficult task of convincing all the farmers that these
products will reduce disease and produce faster-growing pigs and better-quality bacon at lower
cost. Many of the persuasive efforts that affect our lives are never visible to us.
The number of people whose lives are directly dependent upon commercial persuasion is
growing rapidly: TV producers, commercial writers, admen, layout artists, ad agencies—the vast
communications network that depends upon advertising to exist.
The safest prediction that can be made is that more and more people will find that doing
their jobs necessitates persuasion as a part of internal decision-making and information-sharing
and in relating to the society at huge. Commercial persuasion from pushing real estate to
cemetery lots, vacation cruises or soap, or selling services will continue to increase. Whatever our
"work," persuasion is involved, and the evolution of society is creasing the importance of
persuasion in doing that work.

As Persuadee
We are the constant recipients of attempts at persuasion. We are bombarded with
advertisements, billboards, advice and argument from friends, associates, spouses, children.
Further, much of what is news is deliberate persuasion. The mayor's statement that the tragic
death rate will be orbed by greater use of policemen, stiff sentences, and the addition of thirty
more men patrolling for speedsters on the major roads is news and conscious persuasion. The
mass media have come under fire for making news of groups who march, sit-in, or attack the
status quo. "Why give attention to the three percent who are malcontents? Publicize the ninety-
seven percent going to class and doing their work!"
Persuasion is a tool for the receiver: it may serve him or it may destroy him. What can
persuasion do for the receiver? At the most basic level, it aids him in the decision-making
process, it puts others to work for his benefit. How does the persuader serve the receiver?
1. The persuader can sound the cry of alarm. He can arouse us to face a problem,
often a problem that we were not aware existed.

20
 2. He can provide us with information about causes, about solutions, about reasons
for us to act. If the problem is significant, competing streams of persuasion will evolve.
These will, with little effort on the receiver's part, provide information, alternative lines of
analysis, discussion of solutions.
3. He may rouse us to persuasion, to take up the cause or to move to counter
persuasion.
4. He may cause us to test our habits. Our mental world tends to become ordered,
balanced, congruent. We see things as we think they are; we stop seeing what we look at.
We may suddenly discover a new toothpaste that fights cavities 59 percent better," and we
buy it. Who cares about toothpaste? It is not worth a year's research, but we all do care at
one level. The persuader can lead us to check to see if the world has changed, if
yesterday's solution, yesterday's tax payment, yesterday's ideal is still functional. He may
inoculate us by testing the rusty tool, the unused idea.
5. He may enable us to succeed in our work, in attaining our goals, both personal
and public. We cannot know, we cannot have time to gather all the information we need.
But the role of persuasion is to bring us these materials so we can make reasoned,
informed decisions. A persuader works for us.
The higher a person rises in terms of decision-making responsibilities, the more essential
persuasion becomes to him, particularly as receiver. He becomes increasingly dependent upon
others to provide relevant materials: information, analysis, solutions. His task is to absorb all that
he can and then make the best judgment. He thus puts all the others to work for him, but he is
heavily dependent upon their work.
Of course, the persuader can affect us negatively. We can be confirmed in our idiocy. We
can be persuaded to "buy the Brooklyn Bridge," "afford the two cents a day for the three
magazines and the five free gift magazines of our choice—yes, and help a needy student through
college, too." One can be persuaded to take out an insurance policy on one's son, an endowment
that will mature in eighteen years to provide him $5,000 for college. We may not know that the
regular life insurance on the father's life would provide perhaps $50,000 for the son's education if
the father dies, and if the father lives his earnings are likely to provide sufficient aid—certainly
more than the equivalent of the $5,000 guaranteed, but not guaranteed to balance the rise in
inflation or the increase in tuition.

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 Surely no one argues that the day of "preserving the Aryan race" or" keeping the
bloodlines pure" is past. And men are being persuaded to yield their freedom of choice for food,
or power, or escape from responsibility. Persuasion is a powerful instrumentality. Man, in
responding, may make his life richer, more meaningful, more useful, both as persuader and as
persuade. But man can also destroy the richness of his own life and the life of others, corrupts his
environment, limit his choices, and choose to imprison himself. And he may boast that he has
done so.

PERSUASION AND SOCIETY

Mankind may be viewed as an aggregate of distinct individuals. But man can also be
viewed in terms of relationships to other men, in terms of his society. Initially we looked at
persuasion as related to man, the individual. Yet, even in that context, we were forced to see man
as part of larger systems. What is the role of persuasion in society?
For a society to remain viable, it must at some level provide the mechanisms which permit
the maintenance of that society, and this means meeting the needs of the people who make up the
society. To talk of the United States is not to talk of one entity, but to talk of numbers of people
involved in many multiple interactions of many sorts and types, socially, politically,
economically. All of us play many parts.
For a society to exist, the people within it must accommodate themselves to one another
and a means to reach decisions must be found. Persuasion is, in one sense, the coin of interaction.
Individual decisions often evolve other individuals. One man may make a decision to save the
Great Lakes, but he alone is powerless to affect such salvation. Where other members of the
society are involved he must turn to persuasion to accomplish his goals. For some few things
relative to his direct personal goals, he himself may be the sufficient means.

22
 National Styles of Persuasion
North Americans Arabs Russians
Primary negotiating Factual: Appeals Affective: Appeals Axiomatic: Appeals
style and process made to logic made to emotions made to ideals
Conflict:
Opponent’s
Objective facts Subjective Feelings Asserted ideals
arguments
countered with…
Small concessions Concessions made
made early to throughout as a part Few, if any, small
Making concessions
establish a of the bargaining concessions made
relationship process
Opponent’s
Almost always
Response to Usually reciprocate concessions viewed
reciprocate
opponent’s opponent’s as weakness and
opponent’s
concessions concessions almost never
concessions
reciprocated
No continuing
Relationship Short term Long term
relationship
Authority Broad Broad Limited
Initial position Moderate Extreme Extreme
Deadline Very important Casual Ignored

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 The "organizations" that we use (and are used by) may be large or small. They may relate
to a single issue or to multiple ones; the organization may be constituted for a matter of an hour, a
day, a year, or may exist for centuries. Hence, persuasion will function at and between many
levels as well as between and among various organizations. In these organizations persuasion will
be directed both internally and externally.
These organizational systems provide opportunities for decisions on developing a product,
merchandising the product, selling a service, establishing a national policy, voting an
appropriation, developing a campaign to gain greater support.
Persuasion is not a sufficient explanation of change or the lack of change. But the process
of persuasion is the tool of the individual and of the group to affect the collective decisions of the
society. The persuasion process is not a sufficient explanation of the totality of societal processes
but try to explain a society without consideration of the process.

MOTIVATION, ATTITUDES, AND BEHAVIOR

The science of persuasion is the science of motivation; the art of persuasion is art of
motivation. The persuasion process is one in which the communicator seeks to utilize, to marshal,
to modify, to adjust, to refocus, to redirect the motivational forces impinging upon the receiver(s)
so as to adjust and alter their behavior or potential for response.

THE CONCEPT OF MOTIVATION

Broadly defined, motivation is the process of arousing, sustaining, or altering behavior.
This process includes both unconscious and conscious forces. The relationship of conscious and
unconscious forces in motivation may be likened to an iceberg appearing at sea: at any given
moment only a small portion of the iceberg shows above the surface. Other parts of the iceberg
do exist; they can be investigated; and different portions of the iceberg may be visible at different
times.

Control of Motivation
Can we as individuals control our own motivations, our own responses? Can we as
persuaders create and direct the motivations and the responses of others? Probably the answer to
both questions is: “Yes—to a degree.”
As persuaders, we seek to affect the motivations of others so as to affect a desired
outcome. Certainly the persuader is capable of evolving a psychology of man. If his psychology

24
is accurate, it may lead him to manipulate stimuli that can affect the motivations of another. This
control is not total. Indeed, every society imposes certain restrictions, moral and legal, upon the
degree to which we may manipulate the motivations of others. Our own ethical codes impose
others.
A persuader can adjust stimuli to accommodate himself to internal motivational forces; he
can use external stimuli to allay or arouse new motivational forces within his auditor. To deny the
possibility of such stimulus manipulation is to deny the possibility of persuasion. To assume that
We persuaders would be equally skilled is to assume all are equal in ability. To doubt that chance
and accident play a role is ridiculous.

Attitudes and Values

Attitudes have become a central concern of communication in that the persuasion process
is viewed as seeking some modification in attitude or in the activity linked to an attitude.
Since the persuader typically seeks an “attitude change,”, the very existence of the
persuasion concept testifies to the possibility of alteration of attitudes. But clearly the possibility
of change is greater for some attitudes than for others.
Values are important because they are influences on almost any behavior (at least
potentially), and in one sense, the goals of an individual are linked to the values he holds. Thus a
person who might make “the acquisition of money” a central value in his life will behave both
specially and generally in ways that are congruent with this value. (Actually this is worded more
as a goal than a value, although the value may be both acquisition and money.) Presumably this
value exerts weight in the ongoing behavior of the individual and cuts across the whole of his
activity.
In this sense, values become important elements in persuasion in terms of both source and
receiver.

ANGER AS A PERSUASIVE TACTIC

In negotiation, anger, can be used to persuade the other party not to pursue a manipulative
tactic or to take a hard-line stance on the grounds that the behavior in question is normatively
unacceptable. The practice of using anger to emphasize issue importance may itself be ethically
questionable if the negotiator who makes use of anger in this way is actually feigning anger
rather than allowing him or her to show true anger.

25
 Anger is only one of several means that a negotiator can use to emphasize an issue’s
importance. However, using anger to emphasize one's position on an issue has certain advantages.
One advantage is that anger can be a very compelling influence on the other party's behavior.
Growing angry at an unreasonable tactic or offer shows that the angered negotiator believes the
other party ought to abandon that tactic or position as a matter of principle. Etzioni (1988)
maintains that, for most people, the performance of moral commitments and duties tends to take
precedence over the pursuit of economic gain. Growing angry at the other party's behavior in
negotiations also has the advantage of functioning as an unspecified threat. Anger is often
preliminary to aggression (Averill, 1982). When a negotiator's interests are threatened, angry
responses can perform a function for the angered negotiator similar to that of growling for a dog
whose meal is being targeted by another animal: they convey an open-ended threat. For a
negotiator, anger may be used to indicate that negative consequences (such as an impasse) may
ensure if an unreasonable tactic or position is pursued, without specifically committing the
negotiator to such a course of action. Angry responses may also lend credence to a stated threat.
The practical implications that have been drawn from this analysis of anger in mergers
and acquisitions negotiations are just a few of the many that could be identified and further
developed from future research. Future studies of conflict behavior can profitably go beyond the
narrow focus on anger used here to consider other emotions and related states, such as fear,
resentment, gratitude, guilt, or stress. Scholars and negotiators should be mindful not to ignore
emotional factors in negotiation simply because emotions and their causes are complex. As 1
pointed out earlier, emotions are an integral part of the way human beings approach many
conflict situations. Those of us who are interested in resolving disputes can only benefit by
gaining a better understanding of emotions, the factors that trigger them, and their consequences.

VARIABILITY OF RECEIVER RESPONSE

The variability of response is one of the few "laws" of persuasion. Material presented
previously in this section suggests sources of the variation associated with personality
characteristics and gender. Some characteristic patterns associated with general reactions of
receivers subjected to persuasion stimuli will provide some additional guidelines to the nature of
receiver response.

26
 General Characteristics of Receiver Response
1. Since an receiver is selective in terms of its attention, getting the message to an receiver
may be extremely difficult.
2. People can be persuaded, but persuasion does not always follow attempts at persuasion.
3. As measured by opinion tests, neutral attitudes tend to disappear as a result of a
persuasion effort in the face-to-face setting. This finding is almost ubiquitous in laboratory
studies. It is less typical in non-face-to-face situations since the receiver is less likely to expose
himself to stimuli or to continue exposure sufficient to effect change.
4. Negative persuasion is almost inevitable among some receivers. A failure in persuasion
presumably occurs when the majority of the target receivers or the key receivers become more
opposed to the proposition urged. Even the most successful persuasive efforts usually include
negative shift by some receivers.
5. Persuasion efforts are most likely to reinforce original positions and least likely to
change (convert) the opposition. The effects of mass campaigns that try to convert opinions on
controversial issues usually are limited.
6. Strong attitudinal positions—the more extreme or more committed positions—seem to
inhibit attitudinal change.
7. Effects of "one-shot" persuasion stimuli have persisted at significant levels for over five
months. Usually when delayed measurements have been conducted in experiments the delay has
ranged from two to six weeks. Even in such a short period of time regression toward prior
attitudinal positions is usually marked.
8. In the absence of further persuasive efforts which reinforce the effort, attitudes tend to
regress toward the original position. Again, this is an almost ubiquitous finding.
9. Research on the effect of communication stimuli on hostile receivers has yielded
conflicting results. Many studies show that hostile receivers will either be confirmed in their
previous belief or become even more hostile. Some researchers, however, find that hostile
receivers provide the greatest opportunity for persuasion to gain shifts in attitudes. In part this
may be true because the very extremity of their attitude makes it possible for regression toward
the mean to occur simply as a property of measurement problems and errors in measurement.
Also, Coffin's research suggests that people with extreme attitudes are more suggestible than
neutrals or those who are less committed. Some tendency for extreme positions to shift may also

27
be linked to closed-mindedness. A shift in reference authority could produce dramatic results
since closed-minded people tend to focus upon authority rather than data as the basis for their
attitudes. When persons at extreme opposed positions shift in a desired direction, they do not tend
to become neutral; they pass through or jump over the position. This may say something about
the personalities of these individuals.

THE NATURE OF ATTENTION

We are all familiar with the effect of attention on our daily lives. We find it easy to work
on one assignment, difficult to keep attention on another. We fall asleep during the lecture but
manage to recount in great detail the entire outfit worn by the fellow with the long hair.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PERSUASION

A communicator seeks to serve as the selector of the attention of his receivers. This does
not mean that he can or should completely dominate the attention of his receivers or that he will
be able to focus their attention at will upon himself at one moment and upon his ideas at another.
Since attention fluctuates among the multiplicity of potential stimuli to which the individual is
subject, and since any one unchanging stimulus becomes tiring, attention will fluctuate in degree
and direction. A communicator needs not only to win but also to regain attention. Further, the
realistic communicator understands that some items are basic to understanding, and he seeks to
draw maximum attention to these items while permitting others to operate with less intensity.
For the sake of analysis, attention may be divided into three types: involuntary, voluntary,
and non-voluntary. Involuntary attention is the result of stimuli of such magnitude or impact that
a person automatically and uncritically gives attention. Thus a gunshot, scream, flash of light, or
other sudden change may gain involuntary attention. Such responses are usually related to
survival.
Voluntary attention is forced attention. Situations often demand that a person consciously
force his attention to a given stimulus. This type of attention involves effort—an awareness of
work—and thus becomes self-defeating as the effort detracts from the fullness of attention on the
desired stimulus source and the tiring causes attention to become more difficult to maintain.
Non-voluntary attention is given without a sense of effort to something that attracts the
attention because of interaction of the perceiver and the perceived. Involuntary attention is really
determined by the nature of the stimulus. Voluntary attention is determined by the effort and

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conscious desire of the person to focus on a stimulus. Non-voluntary attention is a result of the
person's interest and involvement in the stimulus. A speaker can use involuntary attention only
for highly limited purposes; an receiver may give voluntary attention but the effort and the self-
defeating nature of this effort render it suspect. What the communicator is seeking is non-
voluntary attention.
The communicator seeks to use the process of attention, then, to aid in the
accomplishment of his purpose; however, he must be very careful that he does not use it
negatively. In one recent class a student speaker who had just been introduced paused to adjust
his tie and then fired three quick shots point-blank at the first row with a hand gun loaded with
blanks. He then proceeded to give an extended speech loaded with statistics, facts, testimony of
authorities, and concluded by asking if gun legislation could increase the probability of what
could have happened in that classroom.
Lack of attention is often erroneously blamed for a failure in communication. It is
unfortunate that when one thing starts to go wrong with the effectiveness of a communication,
many things start to go wrong. Thus, a person who uses poor logic is often going to have rather
vague
Language. The receiver will become confused; in the attempt to understand the argument
being made, the receiver will "tune out" and attempt to wrestle through the idea. If reading, the
receiver may stop and reread it again or continue on. But the communicator may have lost vital
ground he will never regain. Thus the communicator has poor logic, vague language, loses
attention, and fails. It seems as if everything has gone wrong when one thing really produced all
these outcomes. Similarly when a speech works, everything seems to go right even though some
things were potentially bad.
Often a speaker will pick a particularly interesting topic of significant concern to his
receiver. Because of their concern, the receivers manifest great attention; they follow the
communication carefully; they become involved; the communication succeeds. Judged in terms
of persuasive tactics, strategy, and implementation, the speech may be far poorer than another one
that deals with a less interesting topic. The second speaker may strive harder and receive less
attention.
One final point needs to be made about attention and its relationship to communication. A
receiver tends to identify with the communicator, particularly in an oral situation. In a classroom

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with a friendly receiver— indeed in most situations—the receiver feels some sense of rapport
with the communicator. If the communicator gets into trouble, shows he is extremely nervous,
makes a few slips, or forgets the words he memorized the night before, the receiver will normally
pretend that their attention is not drawn to these problems. But, they may become so involved
that they feel something akin to the speaker's rising tension. They will begin to pull with the
speaker; they will give attention to what comes next; they will almost literally heave a sigh of
relief as the speaker concludes. Unfortunately, here again the attention of the receiver has been
directed to the wrong things, the speaker and his problems, and not to the message the speaker
sought to communicate. To the degree that the speaker wishes his message to be the central focus
he must direct attention to the message and not to things which detract from the message.

THE DECISION TO PERSUADE

Why does an individual persuade? The simplest answer is that he is motivated to do so.
Given the assumption that man's behavior is caused or motivated as stressed, this is axiomatic. To
achieve many of his goals and to ameliorate many of his needs, man must affect his environment
and the forces operating in it. Man must therefore use the tool of persuasion.
Every person is a potential persuader. Beginning with the earliest influences upon us as
children, experience teaches that persuasion is generally an acceptable means of influencing those
around us—a legitimate means of achieving our multiple goals.
The decision to persuade should properly be considered a response. The entire process
which the source follows in the preparation and implementation of his persuasion efforts is an
opportunity to study the response of that organism to multiple factors. The topics treated, the
means employed, and the languages used are key elements of the behavior of the persuader.
Four generalized goals suggest reasons why man persuades.
1. Persuasion seems to be related to maintaining a degree of normalcy in one's situation.
Man relates much of his persuasion to maintenance of a homeostatic balance. Man seeks a
balance in his physiological drives, in his psychological needs, and in his cognitive structures.
Individuals seek to adjust conditions and adjust to conditions so that their needs will continue to
be met. Few individuals want to worry about how they will obtain tomorrow's food; few want to
endure the constant risk of losing shelter, their life or their family. The idea of waking tomorrow
in a totally new world with new laws, new attitudes, and new values is frightening. (Particularly
when we realize this world may not be our idealized one) Much persuasion is devoted to the

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maintenance of balance and sanity in our world. Man seeks a sense of understanding, hence
predictability and control.
2. Persuasion is related to adjusting the environmental forces so that conditions are altered
in such a way that man achieves his long-term goals. The status quo may be sufficient for the
moment, but man attempts to evolve new patterns leading to the accomplishment of future goals.
The concept of growth—of man striving toward some "better" future—is prominent in many
psychological and philosophical views of man. Not all goals or the future involve more status,
money, or fame; they may involve more freedom, more ability to serve, more ability to give,
more fullness and richness in being not in having.
3. Man associates himself with groups and causes which he views as beyond himself and
his personal goals: much persuasion flows from the perception of the imperatives placed upon us
as individuals by these larger interests with which we identify and are associated. Hence, the
diplomat at the United Nations may become more committed to the goals of the United Nations
than to those of his own country. The minister serves God by communicating the "good news" of
the Gospel. We persuade to save the redwoods, to save our society from corrupt politicians, to
save our lives from the corruption of the system. We persuade to save our children from the
"Communist plot" of fluoridation of the water supply and from sex education in the schools.
Although these actions also carry personal rewards, we see them as beyond our individual needs.
Such service to man and such altruistic actions seem to give the person some sense of reward.
4. Persuasion is a part of man's response to his search for meaning. The very act of
persuasion suggests some degree of personal value: it suggests what one does have meaning. The
act of attempting persuasion then is a reward in itself. To attempt to persuade at some level seems
to affirm.

Alternative Decisions
The decision to persuade is only one of several alternative responses. Differences in
perception, comprehension, and judgment, past experience, habit patterns, and values all
potentially affect the response made. A person who has been successful with persuasion in the
past may try again. A person who has never succeeded may not view persuasion as a meaningful
choice. In the same situation one person might elect to attempt persuasion, an- other retreat with
defeat or apathy, a third attempt to gain his end by force.

31
 Some people appear to abandon persuasion as a meaningful way of mediating with their
environment. Even in dealing with family or friend, the assumed authority of prescribed roles
such as father or "boss" may produce a reign of force met in turn by counterforce, trickery, and
guile. Further, in our complex society many individuals feel they are denied access to the
society's persuasion marketplace.
Although the foregoing discussion has dealt with the positive ends and effects of
persuasion, it should be noted that the tools of persuasion are available for any purpose. The
persuader may seek to destroy the freedom of a people or merely trick a store clerk out of an
extra dime. The persuader may want to destroy a marital relationship or a personal friendship.
Persuasion may be used to spread societal malaise, particularly in times of change and transition.
Persuasion, even seeking "bad" ends, is presumed to be a better alternative for the society
and the individual than either force or withdrawal. But this means everyone must have
meaningful access to persuasion opportunities. The existence of interplay of force, persuasion,
and withdrawal, factors affecting all societies, is unchallenged. The balancing these factors in a
society are a complex and delicate process.

SELECTING THE SPECIFIC PERSUASION PURPOSE

Having made the decision to use the persuasion instrumentality, the persuader must refine
this general impulse into a specific persuasion purpose. Often the communicator responds
uncritically and proceeds without conscious reflection. However, for purposes of analysis and in
order to provide a suggested practice pattern for improving one's persuasion abilities, the
remainder of this chapter assumes a rather conscious process of selecting and implementing a
specific persuasion purpose.
The failure to derive a sound specific purpose statement and then to relate and test what
one does in terms of it is in the author's opinion the; most significant factor in causing persuasion
efforts to fail. Of course, this begs the question in one sense in that a clear purpose demands
proper receiver analysis, analysis and selection of material, and proper implementation of
techniques.

Factors Affecting Formation of the Specific Purpose

The general forces which move man to persuasion will affect the precise purpose of a
specific persuasion effort. However, a given persuasive act takes place in terms of a specific

32
receiver and a specific matrix of factors; therefore, the specific purpose must articulate with
factors specific to the given effort.
1. The persuader may be responding to a highly specific need. "I need a date tomorrow
night."
2. The persuasive effort may be a response to the persuasive efforts of others. Often we
are pushed into persuasion by the actions of another persuader that moves us to response.
3. The persuasion effort may be the result of an assigned task. Commercial persuasion and
persuasion campaigns involve many people working together in an interrelated system. The role
of the individual, whether salesman, commercial artist, copy writer, advance man, even the
political candidate himself, may be quite specifically defined by others. The task will typically
involve some degree of planning, implementation and the setting of a specific purpose or sub
purpose if the individual is actually a persuader and not merely the agent of a persuader.
4. The forces or factors that induce the person to become a persuader may fix the specific
purpose. If one volunteers to campaign door-to-door in the mothers' march on birth defects, the
purpose has been set.
5. The knowledge, understanding, and abilities of the persuader will structure his purpose.
One cannot present information he does not have; he cannot seek to accomplish a persuasive
purpose he does not realize is available to him. The limitations of the persuader, since he tends to
be unaware of them, are extremely powerful factors conditioning any specific purpose as a
persuader.
6. The receiver may determine the specific purpose. In many instances the persuader
becomes one at the invitation of his receivers. The receiver calls him into the role of persuader,
perhaps dictates the subject matter or even the purpose.
7. Receiver analysis may cause the persuader to adjust, discard, or reshape his goal. It
would seem unreasonable to try to convince James Hoffa that the government never makes a
mistake; he might agree that sometimes it does not. It would seem difficult to convince most
businessmen that they should operate without any profit.
8. Forces in the real world such as the realities of the subject matter affect the specific
purpose.
9. Other goals, other values, and other commitments are potential factors shaping a
specific purpose. Man wants to propagate a given idea, product, or service, but he is also

33
conscious, at least potentially, of many other needs. A person may have no objection to earning a
million dollars but would object if he had to rob a bank, defraud the government, or encourage a
war in order to obtain the money.

The Process of Selecting the Specific Purpose

Whatever the matrix of needs that moves a person to persuasion, there is usually some
sense of a subject matter area, a general or perhaps specific purpose, and a target receiver. No
persuader should assume that his specific persuasion purpose is totally predetermined for him. He
should follow a pattern of analysis that enables him to maximally adjust that purpose to the
imperatives of his receiver, his subject matter, and himself.
If a person begins with the general idea of urging his receiver to\ support education, we
might label this his general purpose. But whether the person has ten minutes, ten hours, or ten
centuries in which to persuade, this general purpose is so broad and can be approached in so
many ways that it is in no sense a guide to what should and should not be included in the
persuasive stimuli. (If nothing else, the need for food or the need to use the bathroom will drive
the receiver away long before the introduction to such a vast topic is concluded.)
Thus the persuader needs co frame a rather specific purpose by translating this general
purpose into the realities of his subject matter, receiver, and himself. Throughout the entire
preparation process the communicator should maintain some lively sense of each of these
elements.
The nature of the receiver. An extended period of receiver analysis is essential at this
stage of the process. The persuader could simply ignore his receiver and fire away at his purpose
without adjusting to his receivers. Persuasion efforts would then be totally irrelevant to anything
except the noise level of the society. A given receiver may oppose a proposition, another favor it.
Some auditors may be concerned with taxes, others with services. The persuader who would be
effective must decide where his receiver is in terms of attitude and actions and then discern some
means of achieving his goals.
The best advice concerning accommodation to a receiver is to take an receiver where it is
and move it in the direction you want it to go. A reasonable purpose in one instance may be to
create awareness of a problem; in another, to open a receiver to further information; in a third, to
implement a belief in overt action; in a fourth, to reinforce opinion in the face of counter
persuasion.

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 If the receiver is heterogeneous, with a wide range of receivers in terms of attitudes
toward the topic, interests, personality characteristics and predispositions, the communicator
should make adjustments. But typically a receiver is homogeneous in terms of at least a few
variables. Defining these similarities and planning strategy in terms of them can pay significant
returns.
Some situations may warrant the attempt to move a receiver radically from one point of
view or one action to another. Apparently radical changes can be obtained when action initially
linked to one attitudinal position or value is linked to a quite different one. A person may
suddenly evidence a complete transformation. However, the extremity of the change urged may
be counterproductive. The auditors may feel too threatened and they may shut out the persuasive
stimuli, attack the source, or mount strong counter-persuasion efforts. Often a new movement is
crushed because it arouses strong opposition too quickly. Further, the opportunity to select tactics
which will initiate the process of change may be totally lost in the focus upon massive upheavals.
How many times have you totally altered behavior or belief in response to one persuasive effort?
The persuader himself may have repeated opportunity to continue and reinforce his
persuasion efforts; other people and other factors in society will typically operate to bring parallel
persuasive efforts to bear on the same receiver.
While it cannot be demonstrated that one should set a modest goal for all situations, it
seems valid to assume that success is most probable when one sets an achievable specific purpose
—one that has reality for the specific receiver. To ignore this limitation may result in unwise
planning, in irrelevant efforts, or even in the creation of forces that directly conflict with the goal
of the persuader.
The subject matter. The realities of the topic area condition the purpose. The material that
can be found, the data available, the issues that have been developed, the status of the problem,
the total world—all have an impact on any given speech. Full brotherhood of men may be
desirable, but the communicator can hardly assume it exists just because it is desirable.
Himself. Man is rarely able to function as the chameleon, putting on his colors, ideas, and
values totally for the moment. A man commits himself to persuasion because it is instrumental to
his goals. To totally adjust his purposes to receiver and subject matter means he has abandoned
his “stake” in the proceedings. Why persuade in opposition to one's desires? (Granted, a person
may change and hence his persuasion efforts may change.)

35
 It is difficult to settle for a limited persuasive goal such as opening a receiver to further
information when the persuader really wants to “take them all the way by telling how it really is!”
But if such an attempt is more likely to freeze the receiver in their current attitude or even to
intensify their current condition, the decision demands realistic action. Many are the "hotheads"
who undermine the possibility of persuasion for others. They typically think they have been more
virtuous and honest for telling those "fat cats just where the truth lies." But is it more ethical to
confirm; these people in their current status and to lessen the probabilities for success of other
"truth-tellers?"
In essence, the idea of taking a receiver where it is and moving it in the direction you want
it to go with a potentially obtainable goal is a sound standard. The direction is defined by the
individual; the realities of subject matter, receiver, and skill of the communicator will define the
potential degree of change.

Framing a Specific Purpose Statement

Although much persuasion has and will be attempted without a consciously formed and
carefully drawn statement of purpose, the persuader can profit from the effort. The following
criteria are suggested as a means of judging the viability of a specific purpose statement:
1 Is the purpose clear, meaningful, and reasonably precise?
2. Is the desired goal clearly identified? Is the goal one of persuasive nature, not merely
information transmission, entertainment, or some other non-persuasive one?
3. Does the purpose reflect the realities of receiver, subject matter, and the communicator?
4. Does the specific purpose have a reasonable potential of being accomplished? (Man has
sought to achieve perfection in his goodness or evil since recorded history. He has not yet
achieved it. Rare is the persuader who can do it in five minutes.)
5. Is the purpose essentially singular? Seeking to accomplish two or three major purposes
is dangerous. Some mediational goals may be noted as steps to a more ultimate goal, but purpose
statements that combine two or three coordinate ends are likely to result in unfocused, potentially
meaningless persuasion attempts.
6. Is the purpose free from the confusion of means and ends? It is perfectly proper to
focus upon the means to be employed and to designate a major appeal or key motivational force,
but these elements should not be confused with the goal.

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 7. Is the purpose statement adequately refined and modified as the thinking of the
persuader and his analysis progress during the preparatory process? It seems naive to assume that
a purpose statement once framed may not need refinement as the preparation process continues.
Indeed, the purpose may change as the actual communication is under way. Clearly a purpose
found untenable through further work should be altered.

LOGICAL APPEALS
Appeals to man's ability to make rational choices are clearly important aspects of
persuasion. The effects which logical appeals produce in persuasion are yet to be fully explored,
but consideration of their direct and indirect role is essential. The difficulty of analysis and testing
should not limit appreciation of their value. Nor should the tendency of some to worship at the
shrine of logic as the only basis on which man should act and then constantly bemoan his failure
to do so, thus suggesting man never uses logic, cloud our perception of the value of logical
analysis and logical appeals as one factor governing man's actions.

Strategy in Use of Logical Appeals

The studies on logical appeals are too incomplete to provide a complete theory on which
to base strategy and tactics. However, the following generalizations seem warranted as basic
guidelines for strategy and tactics. Specific circumstances might dictate sharp deviation from
these indications, however.
1. Receivers expect the use of evidence and logical appeals in situations that they
identify as formal attempts at influence. When receivers are set for the appearance of
logical materials, the apparent use of such materials seems essential to avoid some degree
of negative response.
2. Some receivers tend to be relatively open to information and reasoning
materials and are likely to be influenced by them. Other individuals (closed minded) seem
less influenced by information and reasoning and are more effectively reached by other
appeals or by authority citations.
3. Situations exist that call for a maximum of logical appeals. This seems to be true
of certain settings—experts presenting a truth claim to other experts, lawyers arguing
before the Supreme Court, the content of a treatise in a scientific journal.

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 4. Since people typically desire to appear logical, the presence of logic is often
seen as a mark of respect to them and serves as a motivational appeal apart from any
logical impact.
5. Logical proofs (as will be demonstrated later) may significantly enhance the
credibility of a source.
6. Evidence and documentation can improve persuasiveness as contrasted to
repeated assertions without support.
7. Evidence may be particularly useful in enhancing the persuasiveness of a
message whose source is not seen as having much prestige.
8. Logical appeals may not be perceived as such by receivers.
9. Receivers often, but not always, judge validity and acceptability of logical
appeals at least in part in terms of prior set, attitudes, and convictions.
10. Two-sided presentations seem warranted when dealing with hostile receivers,
with relatively well-educated groups, and probably when dealing with persons more
interested in the topic or with greater information on the topic.
11. Logical proofs are not necessarily more effective than emotional or ethical
appeals, but often they are as effective and in some instances may be more effective.
12. Logical appeals are likely to have a high degree of acceptance for friendly
receivers.
a. This may make a friendly receiver more resistant to counterpersuasion.
b. This may provide them with arguments to use on others, thus spreading impact.
c. Often a friendly receiver is seeking to rationalize,' to find good reasons for that
which they already believe; thus, they seek logical support for their position.
13. A hostile receiver may respond favorably to logical appeals.
a. Both sides presentations may be effective.
b. A sleeper effect may occur in which evidence and lines of argument are retained
and over time may affect the attitude in question.
14. Receivers need to be motivated to use logic and to make the effort necessary to
make a "rational" choice.

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 MOTIVATIONAL APPEALS
The term "motivational appeals" is linked to the classical term "pathos" while
contemporary sources would tend to use "emotional appeals" as the rubric.
Motivational appeals are stimuli designed to create a tension, to elicit a feeling or
affective response from a receiver. Motivational appeals are directed to the wishes, wants,
desires, goals, and needs of the person. These needs and wants are not necessarily logical (nor
necessarily illogical), rather they exist either as the result of inherent predispositions or the
conditioning of the self by the society and one's experiences. Appeals to emotions are clearly one
part of this area of motivational appeals.

Strategy in Use Motivational Appeals

Motivational appeals are one of the most important areas of decision in persuasion
strategy. Since attention, comprehension, and acceptance must be motivated, either the receiver
must bring sufficient motivations to the communication situation or these motivations must be
aroused or created by forces operative in the communication situation.
1. Communicators cannot assume that receivers bring with them the motivational
forces necessary to insure attention, comprehension, or acceptance. Such motivations as
are operative may frequently be contradictory to those necessary for accomplishing the
purpose of the persuader. At best they are for the most part simply irrelevant to the
persuader's task.
2. All elements in the communication process have a potential for motivational
impact. To the degree that the communicator can purposefully manipulate these elements,
the potential impact may be heightened. This may range from manipulation of the setting
to efforts to heighten suggestivity due to receiver participation and interaction.
3. Motivational forces may be operative that are not manifested in overt or
emotional responses.
4. Motivational appeals should be proportional to the worth of idea and the
importance of the issue. Research in fear appeals clearly shows that the level of fear
should be proportional to the significance of the topic. The same appears to hold for
reward approaches. Excessive and unwarranted appeals can prove sharply
counterproductive. Indeed, an excess of emotional response can be sharply disruptive to
the communicator's purposes.

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 5. Motivational forces affect attention and perception.
6. Motivational appeals can be relatively overt with friendly receivers.
a. A friendly receiver is favorably disposed toward the topic and pur- pose and may
share many of the motivations of the communicator.
b. Many friendly receivers need vitalization, restimulation, and the motivation to
turn mental assent or belief into overt action. This can demand strong motivational
appeals.
c. Group facilitation and group identification are useful techniques with the
friendly receiver.
7. Motivational appeals should generally be more covert with hostile receivers.
a. Since motivation is the key to human activity, the hostile receiver must, of
course, be motivated.
b. Being hostile, the receiver may be particularly prepared to reject the "excess" of
emotion, the blatant appeal. These receivers can be very sensitive in detecting such
appeals.
c. With hostile receivers motivational appeals may need to seek common ground
and common referential points from which the communicator and communicatees can
operate.
8. Some settings justify a level of motivational appeal that other settings will not
permit.
9. The concept of appropriateness seems particularly relevant to decisions in the
use of motivational appeals.
a. This also provides guidelines for questions in style, delivery, or materials
selected.
10. Different cultures and subcultures have different standards concerning the
proper kind and degree of emotional and motivational factors.
11. Motivational appeals should normally be blended with logical nappeals so that
the two reinforce one another and so the motivational appeals do not seem "tacked on." To
the degree motivational appeals appear intrinsic to the material they tend to be more
effective.

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 12. Consonant and mutually reinforcing motivational appeals seem more effective
than appeals that "shotgun" the entire range of possible appeals. Subsidiary appeals should
be used that reinforce the dominant appeal.
13. Motivational appeals need to be distributed throughout the communication
rather than concentrated solely in the opening. However, motivational appeals should be
emphasized early in the communication.

LANGUAGE AND STYLE

Thoughts and ideas are not messages. Thoughts must be encoded if they are to be
transmitted to another individual by stirring up meanings in the mind of the receiver. Hence the
creation of messages necessitates the use of language. This section is concerned with the nature
and function of language and style in yielding persuasion effects.

LANGUAGE AND STYLE IN PERSUASION

The basis of evaluation of language and style in persuasion is the effect of these elements
in determining persuasion outcomes. This approach yields a judgment of language and associated
stylistic features in terms of their effect on the mediational processes of attention, comprehension,
and acceptance. It is true that style has aesthetic dimensions. Communications evaluated from the
view of the poetic are judged in terms of beauty. To some degree aesthetic response, particularly
in certain situations, is an important key to persuasion effectiveness. Many communications are
judged as having great beauty and as being a part of man's lasting "literature." Some
communication efforts that are considered enduring works of art have been ineffective persuasive
efforts judged from immediate response. The persuader's immediate concern is not with beauty
and art, but with functional effect.
The persuasiveness of style is a complex question. To change the style seems inevitably to
change the content to some degree. Words are not identical; therefore, to change a word is to
change the content (meaning) carried by the word. Hence we are faced with the question of the
degree to which the change in content is persuasive and the degree to which the style is
persuasive and how the two interact.
Commercial persuaders often test various artistic elements such as color, lettering, and
positioning in the layout of ads. Even product names may be evaluated at great length, and
different names used in various test markets. Motivational research has led many advertisers to

41
adopt words for associational rather than denotative values. Slogans can be extremely effective in
gaining acceptance. Persuasion occurs as the source and receiver become identified one with the
other through the linguistic strategies employed. Language is the most important tool employed
to yield identification. The phrase "he talks my language" is a common indication of praise and
identification. As a man uses words that unite him with my ideas, my values, my reference
groups, I may accept him, his proposition, and his attitudes. The confusion between the word and
the thing is much emphasized in general semantics. People who might faint at the sight of blood
may also faint at the mention of it. Vivid descriptions can make us feel the horror of a vicious
crime. The tendency not to distinguish between the word and the reality the word presumably
symbolizes suggests that style often has direct persuasive impact.
The limits of language and style as the direct cause of persuasion versus their role as
mediators for other factors inducing persuasion cannot yet be assessed. By concentrating on
smaller units of material and seeking to maximize the effect of the linguistic medium in terms of
attention, comprehension, and acceptance, the communicator should be improving his persuasive
effort.

ETHOS: CREATION AND EFFECTS

Ethos, the image of the source, is a powerful element in persuasion. Under a variety of
rubrics the concept of ethos has received the attention of many rhetorical theorists and
experimentalists from classical to contemporary times. During the last decade ethos has become
the subject of concentrated experimental investigation.

THE NATURE OF ETHOS

Aristotle perceived ethos as a powerful proof supplied by the man (source) himself and
through judgments made of his character, sagacity, and good will. But in later theories of
persuasion the stress upon judgments of the source made by auditors became intertwined with
questions concerning the intrinsic goodness and morality of the individual and his persuasion
efforts. Further, when rhetorical theory was under the dominance of faculty psychology, logical
and emotional proofs could be easily identified with mental faculties but judgments concerning a
source seemed less clearly linked to a given faculty of the mind. Ethos tended to lose its sharp
focus as a major source of proof. This confusion was later compounded by a tendency to adopt
terms employed by researchers in social psychology; e.g., "prestige," "source credibility,"

42
"expertise." In looking for explanations of persuasion effectiveness, various analysts turned to the
"magical personality that persuades," "the mesmerizing personality," when other explanations fell
short.

Definition
Ethos is the image of the source held in the minds of the receiver (s). Fully
operationalized, ethos is the total of the receiver's (s') responses to all possible questions about the
source. Typically in measurement only a limited number of questions are employed to estimate
the image. Thus the image of the source corresponds to the psychological concept of attitude
toward the source and measurement involves the collection of opinions.
Three distinctions implicit in the definition of ethos provide a basis for more extended
discussion: (1) ethos is determined by receivers; (2) ethos may change over time; (3) ethos are
measured at different points in time as related to a given communication act.
This should not suggest that what a person "is" and what a person does is irrelevant to his
image; far from it. But the meaning of these things independent upon the person who perceives
these stimuli. And in addition, that image may be either negative or positive.
The ethos of a source can be thought of in many different ways. An image may be an
average of the images of any defined set of receivers. It is also possible to talk about the
variability of the image. In some instances a source may have a relatively congruent image; a
wide variety of people see him in approximately the same way. Certainly many things affect the
ethos which an individual has at a given moment in time. But the communication act provides the
maximum opportunity for a person to affect the image that exists in the minds of his receivers.
Therefore it is particularly useful to talk of ethos at certain key points in the communication act
and to attempt measurement at the following points in time: (1) prior to the communication, (2)
curing the communication, and (3) after the communication.

EFFECTS OF THE PERSUASION PROCESS ON THE

SOURCE
In approaching the persuasion process we inevitably tend to think of the body of effects
realized in the receivers. But what are the effects of the persuasion process on the source? To the
degree that persuasion serves as an instrumentality which the source employs as a means of
accomplishing his goals, the effects engendered in receivers are very relevant to the future action

43
of the source. A successful persuasion effort may place the source in a position to accomplish his
goals. An unsuccessful persuasion effort may result in redoubling of efforts, radically revising
strategy, shifting to new goals or abandoning the effort.
But there are other effects upon the source which should be noted as well. The behavior of
the source immediately before, during, and after an open communication effort is obviously
affected quite directly by the persuasion process. But other, more far-reaching effects may also
occur. The source may perform a good deal of self-persuasion: he may become more or less
committed to his point of view or he may shift to another point of view due to adjustments made
to his own behavior as well as the response of others. His persuasion efforts may place limitations
on his future behavior, shift his self-image, alter choices available to him. We shall examine such
effects on the source as one important aspect of the persuasion process.

SIGNIFICANCE
Of what significance are the effects the persuasion process produces on the source? The
answer to this question lies in an examination of some of the important effects and an evaluation
of the import of these effects on the source in terms of his attitudes and behavior.
Some effects of the persuasion process on the source are long-term-and relatively difficult
to isolate since the effects are the result of an on- going process rather than any one element in
the process. Other effects are quite short-term and can be specifically related to one element in
the total process. Thus, a sudden surge of negative feedback may increase the tendency to
vocalized pauses; anticipation of an important speech may produce heightened tension.
The most obvious effect upon the source is whether or not his immediate goal in the
persuasion attempt is achieved. If it is achieved he can proceed accordingly. To the degree it is
not achieved he can make adjustments either by continuing his persuasion efforts, changed or
unchanged, or
By altering his goals in some respect.
How does one's persuasive effort affect him? For purposes of illustration let us assume
that a given communicator is relatively successful. His communication efforts are rewarded in
that he moves toward the accomplishment of his goals. He is given feedback which indicates a
positive response to him and his efforts. His perceptions of the world are accurate because other
people accept them and operate in terms of them. Since this individual is being rewarded he tends
to persevere in what he is doing. He will continue to use the persuasion process as a means of

44
accomplishing his goals. Further, in receiving such reinforcement he should develop enough
security to profit from error. Differential reinforcement will / provide him with a basis for
adapting his efforts in more effective ways. Negative feedback can become positive in that he
learns from it.
What response would a person make to failure? He might adopt new, strategies to seek the
old goal. He might abandon the goal. He might redirect his energy in any number of constructive
and nonconstructive ways. He might, for example, find newer, more effective ways of
proceeding. But he might also withdraw and cease to compete in the area of ideas. Limited to
individuals, such withdrawal can be destructive both personally and at the potential contribution
lost to the society.
The personality of the individual is clearly related to the persuasion process. Personality,
defined as the integrated and dynamic organization of the physical, mental, moral, and social
qualities of the individual as manifested in social interaction with others, is inextricably linked to
communication. Communication, particularly persuasive communication, becomes the
operationalization of our personality. Thus, the persuasion process is the behavioral manifestation
of the source's personality. Not only does an individual judge his personality through the response
to his communication, bur since the response affects the individual, it shapes his personality.

PERSUASION OF THE SELF

Self-persuasion is one of the effects on the source that results from his participation in the
persuasion process. Through his involvement with and presentation of messages, the source's
own attitudes, beliefs, and actions are affected. The potential for such effects is always present
although it may not occur in every instance. Some of these effects are mediated by the receiver,
and others relate to the effects of the process directly upon the source without reference to
receiver response. It would not be valid to insist that the most important impact of the persuasion
process is upon the source himself. But often the impact upon the source's beliefs, attitudes, and
actions is an important effect of the process and in given instances such effects may be the only
ones or the ones of most consequence.
Self-persuasion results from at least three patterns: reinforcement, commitment, and
cognitive balance. Although the third pattern has received the greatest amount of experimental
investigation, the other two patterns merit exposition.

45
 EFFECTS ON ACTION
Before the Communication Act
Much of the behavior of the source in advance of the communication acts related to his
preparation. According to the importance of the occasion and the receiver, the source may devote
extensive time and effort to the preparation process.
The anticipation of persuasion may also affect relationships with potential receivers. A
good deal of the attention of the source may be devoted to developing and maintaining a
favorable ethos. A source may develop a strategy that involves manipulation of setting or
receivers in preparation for the particular persuasion effort. Thus, in many instances the
persuasion strategy is being implemented in tactics that occur well in advance of the given
communication. Therefore the source's behavior is being determined in large part by the demands
of his strategy and the tactical considerations involved in its implementation.

During the Communication Act

Feedback received by a speaker from his message and receiver and by a writer from the
message may lead to adjustment in behavior. To some degree the communicator may become the
prisoner of the feedback. Typically the feedback provides an opportunity to adjust the strategy
and tactics being employed. The source may consciously choose to ignore such feedback, but
unconsciously he will be affected and often consciously elect to modify his behavior. Even under
the best conditions the source may not interpret feedback correctly, and different people vary in
the degree to which they can elicit and utilize feedback.
Furthermore, while feedback can be helpful in enabling the source to improve his
persuasive efforts, it can also be detrimental. Sometimes to know what the receivers are thinking
or to think you know what they are thinking can be detrimental.

After the Communication Act

Completion of an act of communication almost inevitably involves some degree of release
from tension and involvement coupled with an evaluation of the impact of the communication
and possibly a decision concerning future actions related to the goals involved in the
communication
The post-communication situation involves some degree of evaluation by the source,
perhaps unconsciously so. The source makes a judgment of the worth of the communication, its

46
success, the impact which it had for short- and long-range purposes. This evaluation is important
because it presumably controls the future behavior of the source to some degree as well as
contributes to the long-range effects on the source discussed in the early part of this chapter. One
of the most significant aspects of this stage is the evaluation of strategy and tactics and the degree
to which the goal has been accomplished. Changes in strategy may be evolved almost
automatically, plans for the next stage formulated, or other adjustments in the long-range
persuasion process undertaken.

ETHICS AND PERSUASION

The existence of a relationship between persuasion theory and practice and ethics is
incontestable. The existence of that relationship and its nature has, however, been the subject of
much dispute among writers n persuasion. Although most authors agree that applied persuasion
involves ethical questions, many do not feel that persuasion theory and ethical theory are any
relationship except in applied persuasion. Further, the way in which ethics is related to concrete
application is disputed. Some authors settle for listing a set of prescriptive "dos" and "don'ts."
Others attempt to relate their ethical standards in persuasion to a variety of philosophical
positions. Still others feel that this is an area in which individuals decide in terms of their own
ethical standards.

Are Persuasion and Ethics Related?

In one sense all succeeding questions are included in this question. If persuasion and
ethics are not related, no further questions about the relationship of the two need be posed. The
study of persuasion at the level of forming a theory of persuasion may have no ethical
component. Persuasion theory that only describes a system that is complete within itself may be
treated as removed from ethical considerations. The persuasion process also involves decisions
about the ends to be sought both on an immediate and a delayed basis. Hence ethical decisions
about the important and unimportant, the valuable and the valueless are inevitably involved.
Furthermore, ethical decisions related to persuasion have impact not only as ultimate judgments
of "good" or "evil," but also as pragmatic implications of effectiveness. To treat persuasion as
concerned only with describing, and as a system complete within itself, ignores the interrelations
of the persuasion process and the individual and the society. The “Big Lie” is sometimes
effective, but one factor relative to that effectiveness will be the judgment that some receivers

47
make about how ethical the appeal is. Although it may be effective in some respects in the short
run, one must ask questions about its effectiveness in terms of other aspects and in the long term.
If one effect is to cause receivers to distrust other persuaders, this has some relevance to the
persuader. It is not easy to divorce ethical elements from short-term effects; it is impossible to
divorce ethical questions from long-term effects. To suggest that the two are divorced suggests
that we must systematically exclude many of the effects of the persuasion process that we might
be exceedingly interested in investigating.

Should Ethics be Discussed Abstractly or Concretely?

In part the answer to this question is linked to the type of generic ethical theory to which
an individual subscribes. A deontological approach employs a procedure in which a formal moral
criterion is used as a basis. Men have a duty to perform (or not to perform) certain actions
whether they can perceive the good or the tightness of these actions. The formal criterion of is
based in God, conscience, or the "categorical imperative" a la Immanuel Kant. In this approach a
textbook might merely list the formal moral criterions and possibly indicate an application of
them.
In contrast, a teleological approach focuses upon the consequences of an action. No
behavior is intrinsically right or wrong. A judgment is based upon the result or the tendency to
produce good results. Good results may be interpreted through any of a variety of standards such
as tending to personal benefit or pleasure, fulfillment of the potentialities of self, or social utility.
In this instance a textbook should provide an estimation of or a basis for the estimation of the
"good effects," and then show how this good can be determined in some concrete instances that
might suggest situations in general.
In any event, a discussion of ethics that is not geared to one specific situation must include
some of the general issues regarding the application of ethics and can, at most, provide suggestive
instances of applications in concrete instances.

Should One Persuade Lacking Certainty?

One may lack certainty in terms of a variety of factors. Each of the following questions is
related to the larger issue of persuading when lacking certainty.
Lacking Certainty of the Validity or Truth of the Goal. Usually, one persuades without
being absolutely sure that what he urges is ultimately best for himself, for the receiver, for society

48
in general. Some people assume the posture of certainty (perhaps because they are ultimately
more insecure). Some may be too stupid to realize the possibility of error. Yet others may be so
uncertain that they undertake no action at all. Inevitably, the decision to persuade or the decisions
not to persuade are equally decisions and both carry ethical implications. Obviously, one can vary
in the degree of probability that he feels about a certain position. But just as we can be wrong in
our position, we can be wrong in the degree of probability or the degree of certainty that we
attribute to that position.
Lacking Certainty about Effects. Even if one assured himself that he had a valid truth to
communicate, he still does not have full knowledge of the effects. We cannot predict the effects
of a message, even a truthful message. We may succeed in arousing action to a degree far beyond
that we consider tenable. A given approach may be so mild that it produces no effect, or even
being mild may produce wildly intemperate effects. One cannot know all that is to be known
about actual, let alone potential, receivers.
Lacking Certainty about Ethical Values. Despite the long search for ultimate ethical
values, man has yet to agree upon such values. Many men have agreed on one or more, but other
men have disagreed just as vehemently either about the value itself or about its application in
situations. We may become convinced of the validity of our ethical code. And, here as in other
instances, we may operate with varying degrees of certainty of what is right in one situation and
what is right in another. But others do not always share the same code. The values and codes
apparently endorsed by groups or the society may differ from that of the individual. The receiver
may operate in terms of a quite different code than the source. How does one go about persuading
in the face of contradictory or nonparallel codes? Again, we may prefer the man who is less
certain than the man who is more certain. Often the most committed individual is the most
intolerant.

As source. When we function as sources we presumably accept some responsibility for

ensuring that the ideas we are communicating are justifiable. We submit them to a multitude of
tests in terms of our experience, our prejudices and biases, our habits, our feelings, our logic, our
ethical standards. Presumably any idea, any communication, is tested at some level consciously
and unconsciously before we communicate it. In testing ideas, in planning communications, we
are operating within our own frame of reference. The ideas and communications may not meet

49
the tests of other people using other frames of reference. The source should assume responsibility
for the effects of his action. Even though a source knows that his understanding of the process of
persuasion is limited and that his insight into the receiver is necessarily limited, he can still act
from the assumption that he has responsibility.
In persuasion a source is not only forced to decide the goal of his persuasion, he must
decide how to persuade the intended receivers. He tests the ideas not only for himself but by the
ways receivers can be led to accept them through use of the logical, motivational, and ethical
appeals employed. If a source can find no logical, motivational, or ethical reason why his
receivers should accept his proposition in terms of their frame of reference, he has an indication
of a question relative to his responsibility.
As receiver. As an active agent in the persuasion process the receiver also bears
responsibility. Just as the source will test materials in terms of his perceptions, so the receiver
similarly tests materials in terms of his perceptions. Clearly the systems may differ. From a
pragmatic viewpoint the receiver will profit from testing for himself. Totally apart from his own
self-image, his desire to be seen as critical and rational and as making his own decisions, the
receiver has practical reasons for drawing his own conclusions. The source may operate with a
quite different ethical, logical, and motivational system. The source may be deliberately
exploiting the receiver to benefit the source but harm the receiver. Or the source may be very
well-intentioned but lack the specific knowledge that is available only to the receiver that causes
the persuasive goal to be undesirable. Indeed, if the source knew this information perhaps he
would have changed his goal.
If one can judge and evaluate which is present and if one can have some choice, one has
responsibility. Again, even though a receiver may not be fully able to exercise control it seems
useful to assume as much control and responsibility as one can. Since we will bear the
consequences of our actions whether or not we are fully responsible for them we can just as well
assume the responsibility even if we fail to fulfill it totally.
Values of the system. It seems logically contradictory to regard the source as having 100
percent responsibility for his persuasion efforts and the effects of those efforts and simultaneously
view the receiver as having 100 percent responsibility for the effect of the persuasion effort.
However, this seems a desirable condition.

50
 Source and receiver are two different individuals. They operate with different perceptions,
with minutely or markedly different value systems. Just as a conclusion that is supported by more
than one piece of evidence and more than one independent line of reasoning has greater
probability of being valid, so a persuasion effect that results from two relatively separate,
independent assessments would likely turn out to be a more beneficial one to the receiver and to
the society at large and in many senses to the source.
Further, if either source or receiver defaults on his responsibility, the other active
participant presumably continues to shoulder sufficient responsibility to provide some protection
for both. If we cannot trust others, we can at least trust ourselves whether as persuader or
persuade. And in trusting ourselves we can put others to work to assist us in our efforts.

HOW TO BE A GOOD PERSUADER

BEING A GOOD LISTENER
Powerful persuasion begins with the ability to hear what others are saying. Only effective
listening will help you to understand another person’s thoughts, feelings and actions.
Since we can think approximately four to five times the rate that somebody is speaking,
we tend to think of other things and not just about what is being said. When listening to someone
our mind has the time to wander away from the words that has been spoken to any object around.
You may look as tough you are listening, but you are not actually hearing anything.
All communication between individuals essentially moves the relationship either forwards
or backwards, or keeps it the same. The way you listen and respond to other people is superior in
promoting the relationship. So how do we get the best out of the speaker by showing that we are
listening in the right fashion?

Don’t Interrupt
Because thoughts formulate faster than speech, we have a strong temptation to interrupt
the other person speaking. It’s a sign that you are not listening, or that you are eager to sidetrack
the speaker’s line in favor of your own, or that you are one of the many people who enjoy talking
more than listening. Whatever the reason, you are going to oppose the other person.

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 Don’t Finish the Other Person’s Sentences
You can do this occasionally, but don’t make a habit of it. To keep doing it to the same
person is not only irritating, but also bad psychology, because the speaker will not feel in control
of their ideas. Do not forget, you may easily guess the wrong ending. And that is hard for us to
understand because generally people do not tend to say that you have messed up their line of
thought. They can’t do that because they can’t continue with their original point. Also the wrong
ending that you supplied may also implant doubts that never previously existed.

Talking Over the Other Person

Another bad habit adopted by many people is talking over the other person while they are
speaking. We all talk over others to some extent, for various reasons such as excitement, a desire
to show empathy, or a desire to “bring someone down”. If we are aware of it, we can at least try
to avoid it.

KEEPING ATTENTION
If we want people to listen to our message, so we have to keep our receiver interested
enough to listen. Attention is held only when interest is rising.

Attention Breakdowns
This problem exists all the time in everyday life. During an interview or a meeting, there
might be a breakdown of attention which is totally beyond our control. To continue in such
unfavorable circumstances is a waste of time and effort, the other person’s mind is elsewhere. Try
the suggestion of making another appointment. The next time you should at least receive more
sympathetic attention.

Visual Distractions
A visual distraction is anything that makes us lose our attention to something. In any
situation, if you have something on you that you think may distract the listener, just tell the other
person at the beginning.

Dealing with Constant Interruptions

It’s annoying when you are having a conversation with somebody and you are constantly
interrupted. When you are interrupted, give the person a summary of what you said before the
interruption. That way you are helping the other person to come back into discussion. By

52
summarizing what you said each time, you are also helping the other person to crystallize all the
benefits that you have been discussing. (job interview! )

Say What You Are Going To Say

This can be called the golden rule for holding attention and making your message
memorable and understood.

Say what you are Say what

going to say Say it you said

MEMORY
Having a good memory with powerful recall is an effective tool for being persuasive in
your dealings with people. The problem is that a lot of people have average memories and many
others have very bad ones. So a good memory puts us in a powerful position.

Remembering Names
Remembering names appears to be the biggest problem for most people.And yet the nam
is the most important information that we need to know about an individual. If you forget
somebody’s name, you are knocking down his ego.
In most cases, it’s not that you actually forget a name. You probably never picked it up in
the first place because you were not interested enough or you were distracted at that time.
Rule 1: Make sure that you hear the name
If you can’t catch the name at the beginning, admit that you actually couldn’t hear. At the
start, the obvious statement, “sorry, i couldn’t catch your name” would have been the solution.
There’s a two-fold advantage to this:
 You are actually sure of the name
 As a psychological plus, you make the person you are meeting feel more
important.
Rule 2: If you hear a name, make sure you put it to the right face
Calling the person by the wrong name is worse than not remembering the name at all.

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 POWER OF WORDS
Be persuasive with open communication
The style of communication determines whether we can bring people around to our way
of thinking.
The question “why?” makes us want to justify ourselves rather than look at alternatives
for future. The reason is that it requires a rational explanation for our behavior.
“Why can’t you be more careful when you ....?”
“Please try and be more careful when you ...”
The use of word “you” can be responsible for much negative communication. Used in an
accusing way, it can evoke a hostile reaction in the recipient.
“You always let me down when there’s an important meeting coming up.”
“I need your cooperation when I have got important meetings”

TIMING
If you catch a person at the wrong time, it could be the end of your effort. And you usually
don’t get a second chance. Sometimes it’s easier in life to say no immediately if you are pushed
for time and preoccupied.
You should also remember that people talk and act differently when someone is with
them. The reasons include;
 They may be nervous
 They may want to impress the person who is with them
 They may not want the person present to know about the topic being
discussed
Timing is vital if we are trying to be persuasive in a situation we will often respond to the
same approach completely differently at different times. Waiting until the right opportunity can
lead you straight to your goal.

THE PERSONALITY SPECTRUM

Psychologist Carl Jung describes what a particular individual pays attention in the course
of their lives – the preferred way of taking in information.

54
 For the Senser (S), the focus is on facts and the use of the five senses. The person who
engages in sensing is taking in the objective world through perceptual processes through the
senses.
The Intuiter (N) pays attention to the vision of what could be and also engages in the use
of sixth sense. This type likes variety and new and different experiences and they may work on
many different jobs all at once.
The Thinker (T) person relies on intellectual processes – reason and logic. Any decision
will be based on the logical results of actions and they will decide impersonally. This type finds
emotions to be a barrier to do decision making process and maybe quiet oblivious to the feelings
of other people.
The Feeler (F) person the key word is emotion and logic may not play a significant part.
They may be motivated not to cause distress or hurt other people as they commonly show a lot of
empathy. They will of the let the heart rule the head (unlike the T).
A person’s decision making style based on Jung’s findings derives from the four
psychological states. They are usually paired with one of the two from the opposite function, so
that is a combination of the two preferences. The four types have been categorized as:
 Sensing – Thinking (ST)
 Sensing – Feeling (SF)
 Intuitive – Feeling (NF)
 Intuitive – Thinking (NT)
Let’s take a look at the styles and ways of achieving successful outcomes with these types.
The ST person focuses on specifics and verifiable facts, likes stability and certainty, and
makes practical decisions in an impersonal way, focuses on the present and likes to deal with
realistic goals and deals with things in a logical way. So, when dealing with this type of person:
 Emphasize what can be achieved in the short term
 Prepare well and have facts and any other data readily available
 Explain things in a logical fashion
 Conduct your dealings in a business-like and detached manner, leaving the
personal side out of the proceedings.
 Avoid talking too much

55
  If the interaction ultimately relates to money being spent or invested,
emphasize value and savings.
The SF person focuses on verifiable facts, believes in personal loyalty, trust, being helpful
and friendly, and values these qualities in people they are dealing with. So when dealing with this
type of person:
 Use all your natural empathy to conduct things on a personal basis after
you have got to know them better.
 Look for shared interests
 Back up your attentive listening with positive body language
 Highlight the benefits to them o your proposal
 Conduct the discussion in a methodical step by step manner
 Convey your friendliness by going out of way to do or provide something
for them
The NF person recognizes a wide range of possible opportunities and decides by weighing
values and considering others. So when dealing with this type of person:
 Ask lots of questions and then listen a lot.
 Show your natural friendliness during your interactions.
 Try to go with the flow of what they want and adapt as necessary.
 Highlight what is new in what you are proposing
 Check the body language for any disagreement or confusion, this type often
never voices their concern, so you have to look for leakage. Then question to unearth any
concerns.
The NT person prefers a variety of possible solutions and then selects by impersonal
analysis. They like to analyze and create logical options, look at the big picture and focus on the
long term and like to be thought of as resourceful and ingenious. So when dealing with this type
of person:
 Probe for their own ideas at the outset
 Show that you recognize their vision/concepts and beware of giving the
impression of being patronizing
 Concentrate on business quickly and save any personal conversation.

56
  Accept that this type may bombard you with critical comments
 Allow them freedom to maneuver if this is possible
 Focus on the long term to make them feel comfortable
 Be logical in your proposals and emphasize cause and effect.
 Be punctual and well organized

TESTING
1. In the middle of a face to face meeting with a client or whoever, the telephone rings. He
apologizes and takes the call. While he’s speaking, do you:
a) Look at him and smile constantly
b) Make a signal to him and sneak out to go to the toilet or chat to the secretary or
receptionist
c) Turn your gaze away from him and perhaps occupy yourself with some papers or
make some notes
d) Use body language to show your impatience, hoping it will make him hurry up

2. The person you are with keeps looking at her watch continuously during your discussion.
She doesn’t think you have spotted this, but for the past 20 minutes it’s been distracting
you and prevented you giving your best. What do you do?
a) Hurriedly bring your discussion to a close
b) Just ignore it – it could be a nervous mannerism or obsessive – compulsive
disorder
c) Stop talking at each point that she looks at her watch
d) Ask her politely: “how long have we got?”

3. You have discovered your red ink pen has leaked and there’s a lot of ink showing down
front of your shirt. As you enter the interviewer’s office, your mind is on how you can
possibly conceal red ink. Do you:
a) Say that you have just returned from a holiday in Transylvania
b) Hope she won’t notice
c) Keep your arms folded at all times

57
 d) Explain on arrival what’s happened and make fun of your carelessness
4. You are introduced to three new people and miss one of the names. What do you do?
a) not worry – two out of three is not bad
b) ask: “sorry, I didn’t catch your name”
c) make a guess
d) ask one of the other two people the person’s name, ideally when the person is
distracted

5. You are telephoning somebody about something that is important to you. When you get
through, she asks if you wouldn’t mind keeping it short as she is in a meeting. Do you?
a) Get it over with quickly
b) Ask lots of questions so that it will prolong the call in a natural manner
c) Tell her that you’ll write to her
d) Suggest that as she’s busy, you prefer to call her later in the day when she might
be free

ANSWERS

1)
a) -2 : Give him some brathing place
b) -4
c) +5 : You are making him feel comfortable now; he’s secretly thanking you for it
d) -5
2)
a) 0
b) +1
c) -1
d) +5 : you should find out the real problem this way
3)
a) 0
b) -5 : the distraction would be too great
c) -4
d) +5 : at least she knows that you know

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4)
a) – 1: No excuse, he could be the most important member of the group
b) +5 : Right thing to do
c) -10: worse than no name, the wrong name
d) +2

5)
a) +1
b) -5 : She’s already distracted
c) +1
d) +5 : that gives you a better chace of achieving your goal

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REFERENCES
1. Persuasion : Psychological Insights and Perspectives / edited by Timothy C. Brock,
Melanie C. Green. Thousand Oaks, Calif. : Sage Publications, 2005.
2. Persuasion : The Art of Influencing People / James Borg. Borg, James. New York :
Prentice Hall/Business, 2004.
3. Fundamentals of Negotiation Roger / Clarke Principal, Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd,
1993
4. Individual Processes in Organizational Behavior / Arlington Heights Ill: AHM Pub. Corp,
1978.
5. The Elaboration Likelihood Model Of Persuasion / R.E. Petty and J.T. Cacioppo
Academic press, 1986.
6. Persuasion Theory and Practice / Kenneth E. Andersen, Allyn and Baken Ink, Boston,
1971.
7. Persuasion: How Opinions and Attitudes Are Changed / Abelson, Herbert Irving, 1926-
New York, Springer Pub. Co., 1959.
8. Negotiate to Win: The 21 Rules for Successful Negotiation, Jim Thomas, Harper Collins
Publishers, Inc., 2005.
9. Leading with Persuasion video,
http://www.videovisions.net/video/Leading_with_Persuasion_Preview.htm

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